24 
BEETLE. 
insects had already entered, they were thus driven 
out again. Towards the latter end of summer 
they returned of themselves, and so totally disap- 
peared, that in a few days you could not see one 
left. A year or two ago, all along the South 
West Coast of the county of Galway, for some 
miles together, there were found dead on the shore 
such infinite multitudes of them, and in such vast 
heaps, that, by a moderate estimate, it was com- 
puted there could not be less than forty or fifty 
horse-loads in all ; which was a new colony, or a 
supernumerary swarm from the same place wlience 
the first stock came, in 1688, driven by the wind 
from their native land, which I conclude to be 
Normandy or Britany in France, it being a 
country much infested with this insect, and from 
whence England heretofore has been pe.stered in 
a similar manner with swarms of this vermin; 
but these, meeting with a contrary wind, before 
they could land, were stopped, and, tired with the 
voyage, were all. driven into the sea, which, by 
the motion of its waves and tides, cast their float- 
ing bodies in heaps on the shore. It is observed 
that they seldom keep above a year together in a 
place, and their usual stages or marches are com- 
puted to be about six miles in a year. Hitherto 
their progress has been westerly, following the 
course of that wind which blows most commonly 
in this country.” 
It is recorded by Mouffet, in his History of 
Insects, that in the year 1574 , in the month of 
February, so great a quantity of these insects 
