296 NATURAL HISTORY 
male is a winged insect. Though the utmost se- 
verity of our winter did not destroy these insects, 
yet the attention of the gardener in a summer or 
two has entirely relieved my vine from this filthy 
annoyance. 
As we have remarked above that insects are 
often conveyed from one country to another in a 
very unaccountable manner, [ shall here mention 
an emigration of small aphides, which was observed 
in the village:of Selborne no longer ago than Au- 
gust the Ist, 1785. 
At about three o’clock in the afternoon of that 
day, which was very hot, the people of this village 
were surprised by a shower of aphides, or smother- 
flies, which fell in these parts. Those that were 
walking in the street at that juncture found them- 
selves covered with these insects, which settled 
also on the hedges and gardens, blackening all the 
vegetables where they alighted. My annuals were 
discoloured with them, and the stalks of a bed of 
onions were quite coated over for six days after. 
These armies were then, no doubt, in a state of 
emigration, and shifting their quarters, and might 
have come, as far as we know, from the great hop 
plantations of Kent or Sussex, the wind being all 
that day in the easterly quarter. They were ob- 
served, at the same time, in great clouds about 
Farnham, and all along the lane from Farnham to 
Alton.* 
* For various methods by which several insects shift their 
quarters, see DerHAm’s Physico- Theology. 
