XCVll.] 
OF SELBORNE 
whicli is eaten by ants as well as flies. Though the utmost 
severity of our winter did not destroy these insects, yet the at- 
tention of the gardener in a summer or two lias 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 1st, 1785. 
At 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 apJdcles, or smother-flies, which fell in these parts. Those 
that were walking in the street at that juncture found them- 
selves covered with these insects, which settled also on the 
hedges and gardens, blackening all the vegetables where they 
alighted. My annuals were discoloured Avith 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 emigra- 
tion, 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 
observed at the same time in great clouds about Farnham, and 
all along the vale from Farnham to Alton.^ 
Selborne, March 9, 1775. 
^ For various methods by which several insects shift their quarters, see 
Derham's " Physico-Theolojiy." 
