196 Supposed Connection of Meteoric Phenomena, 



( Flecker, p. 31.) ; the sweating-sickness, in 1551 * ; the plague 

 of Barbury, in 1799-1800 {An. Beg.) i and the plague in 

 the days of Ethelred and Arthur (Caius). They are the 

 index of disease in Africa and the East. When they go to 

 the north, the Arabs always anticipate a general mortality 

 (Jackson's Marocco). They are always contemporaneous, in 

 Nubia, with the plague at Cairo (Light's Travels) ; and the 

 plague ceases when the Nile rises, which it did not in 1833. 

 In March, 1833, locusts appeared in France, probably 

 stragglers from a migratory horde, such as those which, 

 A. D. 593, 852, 1271, 1335-9, 1541-51, 1693, 1732, 1747-8, 

 1792-9, desolated various countries of Europe, as well as Asia 

 and Africa. The locusts and mice have not, however, alone dis- 

 tinguished 1832 and 1833. The mackerel and the mullet, the 

 quail and the toadf, have been already noticed [VI. 289. 291, 

 292.] ; the herrings must now be added, as having appeared, 

 in 1833, earlier, and in greater abundance, than perhaps ever 

 known. In the summer of 1833, a singular insect, there 

 before unknown, ravaged the corn fields in Spain, and so 

 poisoned the wheat, that it could not be eaten. In August, 

 a black wor?n, as voracious as the locust, appeared in Canada, 

 devouring the grass and wheat, and destroying the labours of 

 the colonists. {Quebec Papers.) In the middle of Septem- 

 ber occurred a great irruption of bears J about Paul's Bay, 

 in Canada, said to be driven by hunger {Quebec Papers) ; and 

 at the end of December, wild boars had so much increased at 

 Finisterre, in France, that dreadful ravages were committed, 

 and one animal actually entered the town of Huelgoet, {Armori- 

 cain de Brest.) Livy tells us of a woZ/"which entered and passed 

 through Rome in the year u.c 556. {Hist, xxxiii. 26.), during 

 a season of thunder-storms. It is probable that the same 

 motive impelled both animals, and that the superstitions con- 

 nected with the wolf saved him from being killed by the 

 Romans. We have, however, better testimonies to support 

 the bears, &c. ; for, in 1817, a similar irruption of those ani- 

 mals occurred in Russia and Kamtschatka, in such numbers as 



* Dr. Caius, quoted by Dr. Babington in his translation from Hecker, 

 p. 192. 



f Respecting the toad, whose early appearance in 1833 was remark- 

 able, I may mention here that toads were seen abroad, in the present year 

 (1834), on the 18th of January; and that a patriarch of his tribe came 

 out from his seclusion, in a cellar of my present residence, on the 14th of 

 that month. Frogs have spawned, and partridges have paired, occasionally, 

 in the end of January. 



\ Mr. Lyell (G^eo/., vol. ii. p. 94.) quotes Dr. Richardson on the migration 

 of bears in Canada during cold ivinters. — The case here alluded to was 

 in autumn, and in a hot season. 



