CH. VIII.] COLEOPTEROUS INSECTS. 135 



of dressing them, and living upon them as food. In 

 a little time, it was found that smoke was another 

 thing very offensive to them ; and by burning heath, 

 fern, &c., the gardens were secured, or if the insects 

 had already entered, they were thus driven out 

 again. Towards the latter end of summer they re- 

 tired of themselves, and so totally disappeared, that 

 in a few days you could not see one left. A year 

 or two ago, all along the southwest coast of the 

 county of Galway, for some miles together, there 

 were found dead on the shore such infinite multi- 

 tudes of them, and in such vast heaps, that, by a 

 moderate estimate, it was computed that 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 whence the first stock 

 came, in 1688, driven by the wind from their native 

 land, which I conclude to be Normandy or Brittany, 

 in France ; it being a country much infested by this 

 insect, and from whence England has, therefore, 

 been pestered 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, and were all driven into the sea ; 

 which, by the motions of its waves and tides, cast 

 their floating bodies in heaps to the shore. It is 

 observed, that they seldom keep above a year to- 

 gether in a place, and their usual stages or marches 

 are computed to be about six miles in a year. 

 Hitherto their progress has been westerly, follow- 

 ing the course of that wind which blows most com- 

 monly in this country." 



"In the year 1574," says Mouffet, "so great a 

 number of cockchafers were driven into the river 

 Severn, that they altogether hindered the mills from 

 working, and were with difficulty destroyed by the 

 united efforts of the people, and the different kinds 

 of hawks, ducks, and other birds, which devoured 

 them with eagerness." 



