254 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
LO: it big Da A as Dog?! 
TO THE SAME. 
As I have sometimes known you make inquiries about several 
kinds of insects, I shall here send you an account of one sort which 
I little expected to have found in this kingdom. I had. often 
observed that one particular part of a vine growing on the walls of 
my house was covered in the autumn with a black dust-like appear- 
ance, on which the flies fed eagerly ; and that the shoots and leaves 
thus affected did not thrive; nor did the fruit ripen. To this 
substance I applied my glasses ; but could not discover that it had 
anything to do with animal life, as I at first expected : but, upon a 
closer examination behind the larger boughs, we were surprised to 
find that they were coated over with husky shells, from whose side 
proceeded a cotton-like substance, surrounding a multitude of eggs. 
This curious and uncommon production put me upon recollecting 
what I have heard and read concerning the coccus vitis vinifer@e of 
Linnzeus, which, in the south of Europe, infests many vines, and is 
an horrid and loathsome pest. As soon as I had turned to the 
accounts given of this insect, I saw at once that it swarmed on my 
vine ; and did not appear to have been at all checked by the pre- 
ceding winter, which had been uncommonly severe. 
Not being then at all aware that it had anything to do with 
England, I was much inclined to think that it came from Gibraltar 
among the many boxes and packages of plants and birds which I 
had formerly received from thence; and especially as the vine 
infested grew immediately under my study-window, where I usually 
kept my specimens. True it is that I had received nothing from 
thence for some years: but as insects, we know, are conveyed from 
one country to another in a very unexpected manner, and have a 
wonderful power of maintaining their existence till they fall into a 
nidus proper for their support and increase, I cannot but suspect 
still that these cocci came to me originally from Andalusia. Yet, 
all the while, candour obliges me to confess that Mr. Lightfoot has 
