256 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
here mention an emigration of small aphides, which was observed in 
the village of Selborne no longer ago than August the first, 1785. 
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 themselves 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 observed at the same time in great clouds 
about Farnham, and all along the vale from Farnham to Alton.* 
* For various methods by which several insects shift their quarters, see Derham’s 
“** Physico-Theology.” 
