268. 
NATURAL HISTORY 
As we have remarked above that infefts are often conveyed from 
one country to another in a very unaccountable manner, I fhall 
here mention an emigration of fmall aphides, which was obferved 
in the village of Selborne no longer ago than Augvfi the ift, 1785. 
At about three o'clock in the afternoon of that day, which was 
very hot, the people of this village were furprifed by a fliower of 
aphides, or fmother-Jlies, which fell in thefe parts. Thofe that 
were walking in the ftreet at that jundlure found themfelves 
covered with thefe infedls, which fettled alfo on the hedges and 
gardens, blackening all the vegetables where they alighted. My 
annuals were difcoloured with them, and the flalks of a bed of 
onions were quite coated over for fix days after. Thefe armies 
were then, no doubt, in a ftate of emigration, and fhifting their 
quarters ; and might have come, as far as we know, from the 
great hop-plantations of Kent or Si<[fex, the wind being all that day 
in the eafterly quarter. They were obferved at the fame time in 
great clouds about Farnharn, and all along the vale from Farnham 
to AllOH\ 
^ For various methock by which feveral infefls flilft their quarters, fee Derham^s 
Phylico-Theolog}'. 
LETTER 
