258 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



on a vine at Weymouth in Dorsetshire ; which, it is here to 

 be observed, is a sea-port town to which the coccus might be 

 conveyed by shipping. 



As many of my readers may possibly never have heard of this 

 strange and unusual insect, I shall here transcribe a passage from a 

 natural history of Gibraltar, written by the Reverend John White, 

 Jate vicar of Blackburn in Lancashire, but not yet published : 



"In the year 1770 a vine, which grew on the east side of my 

 house, and which had produced the finest crops of grapes for 

 years past, was suddenly overspread on all the woody branches 

 with large lumps of a white fibrous substance resembling spiders' 

 webs, or rather raw cotton. It was of a very clammy quality 

 sticking fast to everything that touched it, and capable of being 

 spun into long threads. At first I suspected it to be the product 

 of spiders, but could find none. Nothing was to be seen con- 

 nected with it but many brown oval husky shells, which by no 

 means looked like insects, but rather resembled bits of the dry 

 bark of the vine. The tree had a plentiful crop of grapes set, 

 when this pest appeared upon it; but the fruit was manifestly 

 injured by this foul encumbrance. It remained all the summer, 

 still increasing, and loaded the woody and bearing branches to a 

 vast degree. I often pulled off great quantities by handfuls ; but 

 it was so slimy and tenacious that it could by no means be cleared. 

 The grapes never filled to their natural perfection, but turned 

 watery and vapid. Upon perusing the works afterwards of M. de 

 Reaumur, I found this matter perfectly described and accounted 

 for. Those husky shells, which I had observed, were no other 

 than the female coccus, from whose side this cotton-like substance 

 exudes, and serves as a covering and security for their eggs." 



To this account I think proper to add, that, though the female 

 cocci are stationary, and seldom remove from the place to which 

 they stick, yet the male is a winged insect ; and that the blacic 

 dust which I saw was undoubtedly the excrement of the females, 

 which is eaten by ants as well as flies. Though the utmost severity 

 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. 



