coccus. 289 



hearing branches to a vast degree. I often pulled 

 off great quantities by handfuls ; tut 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 sides 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 black 

 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. 



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 the 1st, 1785. 



At about three o'clock in the afternoon of that 

 day, which was very hot, the people of this village 

 was 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 them- 

 selves 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 



