254 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



LETTER L 1 1 1. 



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 mniftrce of 

 Linnaeus, 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 



