dial. [f. SMOTHER v.] A species of aphis.
1781. G. White, Selborne, xcvii. The people … were surprised by a shower of aphides, or smother-flies, which fell in these parts.
1796. W. H. Marshall, Rur. Econ. Midl. (ed. 2), II. 386. The very ‘Black bug’ ‘Negro’—here provincially ‘Smother fly’—with which beans are frequently infested.
1851. B’ham & Midl. Gardeners’ Mag., Dec., 239. The Plum stocks in particular being infested with smother-fly.
