8 



IMPERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



shall have occasion again to enlarge. The same tendency to 

 shift their quarters has been observed in our little indigenous 

 devourers, the Aphides. Mr. White tells us, that about 

 three o'clock in the afternoon of the 1st of August, 1785, the 

 people of the village of Selborne were surprised by a shower 

 of Aphides or smother flies, which fell in those parts. Those 

 that walked in the street at that juncture found themselves 

 covered with these insects, which settled also upon the hedges 

 and in the gardens, blackening all the vegetables where they 

 alighted. His annuals were discoloured by them, and the 

 stalks of a bed of onions quite coated over for six days after. 

 These armies, he observes, were then, no doubt, in a state 

 of emigration, and shifting their quarters, and might have 

 come from the great hop plantations of Kent or Sussex, the 

 wind being all that day in the east. They were observed at 

 the same time in great clouds about Farnham, and all along 

 the vale from Farnham to Alton. 1 A similar emigration of 

 these flies I once witnessed, to my great annoyance, when 

 travelling later in the year, in the Isle of Ely. The air was 

 so full of them, that they were incessantly flying into my 

 eyes, nostrils, &c, and my clothes were covered by them. 

 And in 1814, in the autumn, the Aphides were so abundant 

 for a few days in the vicinity of Ipswich, as to be noticed 

 with surprise by the most incurious observers ; as they were 

 September 26th and 27th, 1836, at Hull, where, as the local 

 newspapers stated, such swarms filled the air that it was im- 

 possible to walk with comfort from their entering the eyes 

 and mouth at every step ; and on the same days they were 

 equally numerous at York and Derby. 



As the locust-eating thrush ( Turdus Gryllworus) accom- 

 panies the locusts, so the lady-birds (CoccinellcB) seem to 

 pursue the Aphides; for I know no other reason to assign 

 for the vast number that are sometimes, especially in the 

 autumn, to be met with on the sea-coast, or the banks of 

 large rivers. Many years ago, those of the Humber were 

 so thickly strewed with the common lady-bird (C septem- 

 punctata), that it was difficult to avoid treading upon them. 



i Nat Hist, il 101. 



