OF SELSORNE. 283 



To this account I think proper to add, that, although 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. 1 



As we have remarked above, that insects are often con- 

 veyed 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 were sur- 

 prised by a shower of Aphides, or smother-flies, which fell 

 in these parts. Those that were walking in the street at 

 that juncture found themselves 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 onions 

 were quite coated over for six days after. These armies 

 were then, no doubt, in a state of emigration, and shifting 

 their quarters ; and might have come, as far as we know, 

 from the great hop-plantations of Kent or Sussex, the wind 

 being all that day in the easterly quarter. They were ob- 

 served at the same time in great clouds about Farnham, and 

 all along the vale from Farnham to Alton. 2 



1 It is not usual, as Mr. Bennett has remarked, for the Coccus of the 

 vine to remain attached for several years in succession to a tree in the 

 open air in England, for the severity of the winter generally destroys it 

 at an early period. But to plants in greenhouses it often proves a 

 serious evil. It can scarcely be regarded as an indigenous insect, and 

 has probably been introduced into this country, from time to time, with 

 exotic plants. ED. 



2 For various methods by which several insects shift their quarters, 

 see Perham's Physico-Theology. G. \V. 



