Volume II Part 9 (2/2)
a very amusing occurrence! to see such a similarity of feelings between the two [Greek text]! for so the Greeks called both the sh.e.l.l-snail and the tortoise.
Summer birds are, this cold and backward spring, unusually late: I have seen but one swallow yet. This conformity with the weather convinces me more and more that they sleep in the winter.
LETTER LI.
SELBORNE, _Sept._ 3_rd_, 1781.
I have now read your miscellanies through with much care and satisfaction; and am to return you my best thanks for the honourable mention made in them of me as a naturalist, which I wish I may deserve.
In some former letters I expressed my suspicions that many of the house- martins do not depart in the winter far from this village. I therefore determined to make some search about the south-east end of the hill, where I imagined they might slumber out the uncomfortable months of winter. But supposing that the examination would be made to the best advantage in the spring, and observing that no martins had appeared by the 11th April last; on that day I employed some men to explore the shrubs and cavities of the suspected spot. The persons took pains, but without any success; however, a remarkable incident occurred in the midst of our pursuit: while the labourers were at work, a house-martin, the first that had been seen this year, came down the village in the sight of several people, and went at once into a nest, where it stayed a short time, and then flew over the houses; for some days after no martins were observed, not till the 16th April, and then only a pair. Martins in general were remarkably late this year.
LETTER LII.
SELBORNE, _Sept._ 9_th_, 1781.
I have just met with a circ.u.mstance respecting swifts, which furnishes an exception to the whole tenor of my observations ever since I have bestowed any attention on that species of hirundines. Our swifts, in general, withdrew this year about the first day of August, all save one pair, which in two or three days was reduced to a single bird. The perseverance of this individual made me suspect that the strongest of motives, that of an attachment to her young, could alone occasion so late a stay. I watched therefore till the 24th August, and then discovered that, under the eaves of the church, she attended upon two young, which were fledged, and now put out their white chins from a crevice. These remained till the 27th, looking more alert every day, and seeming to long to be on the wing. After this day they were missing at once; nor could I ever observe them with their dam coursing round the church in the act of learning to fly, as the first broods evidently do. On the 31st I caused the eaves to be searched, but we found in the nest only two callow dead, stinking swifts, on which a second nest had been formed. This double nest was full of the black s.h.i.+ning cases of the _hippoboscae hirundinis_.
The following remarks on this unusual incident are obvious. The first is, that though it may be disagreeable to swifts to remain beyond the beginning of August, yet that they can subsist longer is undeniable. The second is, that this uncommon event, as it was owing to the loss of the first brood, so it corroborates my former remark, that swifts breed regularly but once; since, was the contrary the case, the occurrence above could neither be new nor rare.
P.S.--One swift was seen at Lyndon, in the county of Rutland, in 1782, so late as the 3rd September.
LETTER LIII.
As I have sometimes known you make inquiries about several kinds of insects, I shall here send you an account of one sort which I little expected to have found in this kingdom. I had often observed that one particular part of a vine growing on the walls of my house was covered in the autumn with a black dust-like appearance, 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 gla.s.ses; 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 sh.e.l.ls, from whose sides proceeded a cotton-like substance, surrounding a mult.i.tude of eggs. This curious and uncommon production put me upon recollecting what I have heard and read concerning the _coccus vitis viniferae_ of Linnaeus, 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 especially 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 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 Dorsets.h.i.+re; which, it is here to be observed, is a seaport town to which the coccus might be conveyed by s.h.i.+pping.
As many of my readers may possibly never have heard of this strange and unusual insect, I shall here transcribe a pa.s.sage from a natural history of Gibraltar, written by the Reverend John White, late vicar of Blackburn in Lancas.h.i.+re, 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 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 sh.e.l.ls, 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 enc.u.mbrance. It remained all the summer, still increasing, and loaded the woody and bearing branches to a vast degree. I often pulled off great quant.i.ties 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 sh.e.l.ls, 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 1st, 1785.
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 s.h.i.+fting their quarters; and might have come, as far as we know, from the great hop plantations of Kent or Suss.e.x, 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.
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