OF SELB011NE. 281 



LETTER LIII. 



TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. 



S I have sometimes known you make in- 

 quiries about several kinds of insects, I shall 

 here send you an account of one sort which 

 I little expected to have found in this king- 

 dom.. I had often observed that one par- 

 ticular part of a vine growing on the walls of my house 

 was covered in the autumn with a black, dustlike 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 sides 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 viniferce of Linnasus, 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 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 im- 

 mediately 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 unex- 



