NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 181 



diately 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 written me word that he once, and but once, saw 

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

 to be observed, is a sea-port town to which the coccus might be con- 

 veyed by shipping. 



As many of my readers may possibly never have heard of this strange 

 and unusual insect, I shall here transcribe a passage from a natural 

 history of Gibraltar, written by the Reverend John White, late vicar of 

 Blackburn in Lancashire, but not yet published : 



" In the year 1770 a vine, which grew on the east-side of my house, 

 and which had produced the finest crops of grapes for years past, was 

 suuddenly overspread on all the woody branches with large lumps of a 

 white fibrous substance resembling spiders' webs, or rather raw cotton. 

 It was of a very clammy quality, sticking fast to everything that touched 

 it, and capable of being spun into long threads. At first I suspected it 

 to be the product of spiders, but could find none. Nothing was to be 

 seen connected 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; but the fruit was manifestly injured by this 

 foul incumbrance. It remained all the summer, still increasing, 

 and loaded the woody and bearing branches to a vast degree. I often 

 pulled off great quantities by handfuls ; but 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 side 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 first, 1785. 



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 



