NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 259 



As we have remarked above that insects are often conveyed 

 from one country to another in a very unaccountable manner, I 

 shall here mention an emigration of small aphides, which was 

 observed in the village of Selborne no longer ago than August ist, 



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. 



LETTER LIV. 



DEAR SIR, When I happen to visit a family where gold and 

 silver fishes are kept in a glass bowl, I am always pleased with 

 the occurrence, because it offers me an opportunity of observing 

 the actions and propensities of those beings with whom we can 

 be little acquainted in their natural state. Not long since I spent 

 a fortnight at the house of a friend where there was such a vivary, 

 to which I paid no small attention, taking every occasion to 

 remark what passed within its narrow limits. It was here that 

 I first observed the manner in which fishes die. 1 As soon as the 

 creature sickens, the head sinks lower and lower, and it stands as 

 it were on its head ; till, getting weaker, and losing all poise, the 

 tail turns over, and at last it floats on the surface of the water 

 with its belly uppermost. The reason why fishes, when dead 



17 



