220 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
of Linnzus, which, in the south of 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 preceding 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 espe- 
cially as the vine infested grew immediately 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 nest proper for 
their support and increase, I cannot but suspect still that these . 
Cocci came to me originally from Andalusia. Yet, all the 
while, candor 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 seaport 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 suddenly 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 
