coccus. 249 



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 appearance, 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 any thing 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 

 sides proceeded a cotton-like substance, surrounding a multi- 

 tude of eggs. This curious arid uncommon production put 

 me upon recollecting what I have heard and read concerning 

 the coccus vitis vinifercB of Linnaeus, which, in the south of 

 Europe, infests many vines, and is a 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 preceding 

 winter, which had been uncommonly severe. 



Not being then at all aware that it had any thing 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 espe- 

 cially 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 



* Most of the species of coccus, which are found in and infest the 

 green-houses and conservatories of Britain, have been introduced with 

 exotic plants. They are now very common in this country, and are a 

 very prolific race. The females fix themselves, and tenaciously and 

 immoveably adhere, to the branches of plants. Some of them lose entirely 

 the form of insects : their bodies swell, their skin stretches, and becomes 

 smooth, and they so closely resemble some of the galls, or excrescences, 

 found on plants, as to be taken for such by people unacquainted with 

 the subject. After this change, the abdomen serves only as a kind of 

 shell, or covering, under which the eggs are concealed. Others, although 

 they are also thus fixed, preserve their insect form till they have laid their 

 eggs, and then die. A kind of downy substance grows on their abdomeni 

 which serves for the formation of the nest in which they deposit their eg^s. 



The males differ considerably from the females, being provided with 

 wings, and are small, but very active insects. It is from one of this tribe, 

 the coccus caete, or American cochineal, that the celebrated red dye called 

 cochineal is made. ED. 



