OF selbohne. 
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 Linnaeus, which, in the south ol 
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- 
