WHITE 



;hes cocci came to me originally from AndaluHtau Yet, all 

 rhc while, candor obliges me to confess that Mr. Lightfoot 

 has written me word that he once, and but or?.;*?, saw these 

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

 here to be observed, is a seaport 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 pas- 

 sage from a natural history of Gibraltar, written by the Rev- 

 erend John White, late vicar of Blackburn in Lancashire, but 

 not yet published ; 



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

 my house, ami wla^h had produced the finest crops of grapes 

 tor years pa$t, w,is suddenly overspread on all the woody 

 branches with targe lumps of a white fibrous substance re- 

 sembling spiders' webs, or rather raw cotton. It was of a 

 very clammy qi;. to everything that touched 



it, and capable of being n"-' n ' r ^' : lung threads. At first I 

 raspected Jmrfth'4h^ find none. 



Nothing was to be s*:n .r.-h r^cted 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; bu? \&<\ fruit wa* manifestly injured by this foul en- 

 cumbrance It veanbtted -rill the summer, still increasing, and 

 loaded the we* *-a.rin^ branches to a vast degree. I 



* by handfuls; )>ut it was so 



siimy and tetiaur--., * could by no means be cleared, 



The grapes new.r - atural perfection, but turned 



watery and vapid. 



M. de ReaiJEftur, I tiwv> o .*?-riv described and 



accounted for. Those h\T8$* *&* 



were no other than the female coccus, from whose side thia 

 cotton-like substance exudes, and serves as a covering 

 security for their eggs." 



To this account I think proper to add that, thoug- 

 female cocci are stationary, and seldom remove from the pb 

 to which they stick, yet the male is a winged insect; and 

 the black dust which I saw was undoubtedly the exert . 



