NATURAL HISTOHY OF SELBOENE. 
181 
diately 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 unexpected manner, and have a wonderful power of maintaining 
their existence till they fall into a nidus proper for their support and 
increase, I cannot but suspect still that these cocci came to me originally 
from Andalusia. Yet, all the while, candour obliges me to confess that 
Mr. Lightfoot has written me word that he once, and but once, saw 
these insects on a vine at Weymouth in Dorsetshire ; which, it is here 
to be observed, is a sea-port town to which the coccus might be con- 
veyed by shipping. 
As many of my readers may possibly never have heard of this strange 
and unusual insect, I shall here transcribe a passage from a natural 
history of Gibraltar, written by the Reverend John White, late vicar of 
Blackburn in Lancashire, but not yet published : — 
"In the year 1770 a vine, which grew on the east-side of my house, 
and which had produced the finest crops of grapes for years past, was 
suuddenly overspread on all the woody branches with large lumps of a 
white fibrous substance resembling spiders' webs, or rather raw cotton. 
It was of a very clammy quality, sticking fast to everything that touched 
it, and capable of being spun into long threads. At first I suspected it 
to be the product of spiders, but could find none. Nothing was to be 
seen connected with it but many brown oval husky shells, which by no 
means looked like insects, but rather resembled bits of the dry bark of 
the vine. The tree had a plentiful crop of grapes set, when this 
pest appeared upon it; but the fruit was manifestly injured by this 
foul incumbrance. It remained all the summer, still increasing, 
and loaded the woody and bearing branches to a vast degree. I often 
pulled otf great quantities by handfuls ; but it was so slimy and 
tenacious that it could by no means be cleared. The grapes never 
filled to their natural perfection, but turned watery and vapid. Upon 
perusing the works afterwards of M. de Reaumur, I found this matter 
perfectly described and accounted for. Those husky shells, which I had 
observed, were no other than the female coccus, from whose side this 
cotton-like substance exudes, and serves as a covering and security for 
their eggs." 
To this account I think proper to add, that, though 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. 
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 first, 1785. 
^ About three o'clock in the afternoon of that day, which was very 
ij hot, the people of this village were surprised by a shower of aphides, 
or smother-flies, which fell in these parts. Those that were walking in 
