LOCUST. 
137 
the year 1748, were evidently some straggling 
detatchments from [the vast flights which in that 
year visited many of the inland parts of the Eu- 
ropean Continent. 
The ravages of Locusts in various parts of the 
world, at different periods, are recorded by numer- 
ous authors, and a summary account of their prin- 
cipal devastations may be found in the works of 
Aldrovandus. Of these a few shall be selected as 
examples. Thus, in the year 593 of the Christian 
era, after a great drought, these animals appear- 
ed in such vast legions as to cause a famine in 
many countries. In 677 Syria and Mesopotamia 
were overrun by them. In 852 immense swarms 
took their flight from the Eastern regions into the 
West, flying with such a sound that they might 
have been mistaken for birds: they destroyed all 
vegetal)les, not sparing even the bark of trees and 
the thatch of houses; and devouring the corn so 
rapidly as to destroy, on computation, an hundred 
and forty acres in a day: their daily marches or 
distances of flight were computed at twenty miles; 
and these were regulated by leaders or kings, who 
flew first, and settled on the spot which was to be 
visited at the same hour the next day by the whole 
legion: these marches were always undertaken at 
sunrise. These Locusts were at length driven by 
the force of winds into the Belgic ocean, and being 
thrown back by the tide and left on the shores, 
caused a dreadful pestilence by their smell. In 
J 271 all the corn-fields of Milan were destroy- 
ed j and in the year 1339 those of Lombardy. 
