GOLD FISH. 
233 
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 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 
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 observed at the same 
time in great clouds about Farnham, and all along the vale from 
Farnham to Alton.* 
LETTER LIV. To. the Hon. DAINES BARRINGTON. 
DEAR SIR, 
When I happen to visit a family where gold and silver fishes 
are kept in a glass bowl, I am always pleased with the occur- 
rence, because it offers me an opportunity of observing the 
actions and propensities of those beings with whom we can be 
little acquainted in their natural state. Not long since I spent 
a fortnight at the house of a friend where there was such a 
vivary, to which I paid no small attention, taking every occasion 
to remark what passed within its narrow limits. It was here 
that I first observed the manner in which fishes die. As soon 
as the creature sickens, the head sinks lower and lower, and it 
stands as it were on its head ; till, getting weaker, and losing 
all poise, the tail turns over, and at last it floats on the surface 
* For various methods by which several insects shift their quarters, see Derham's Physico 
Theology. 
