DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 115 



were seen to rise in the air from Salisbury cathedral, 

 which at a distance resembled columns of smoke, and 

 occasioned many people to think that the cathedral 

 was on fire. A similar occurrence, in like manner 

 oivino- rise to an alarm of the church beine- on fire, 

 took place in July 1812 at Sagan in Silesia". In the 

 follow ing- year at Norwich, in May, at about six o'clock 

 in the evening, the inhabitants of that city were alarm- 

 ed by the appearance of smoke issuing from the upper 

 window of the spire of the cathedral, for which at the 

 time no satisfactory account could be given, but which 

 was most probably produced by the same cause. And 

 in the year 1766, in the month of August, they ap- 

 peared in such incredible numbers at Oxford as to re- 

 semble a black cloud, darkening the air and almost 

 totally intercepting the beams of the sun. One day, a 

 little before sun-set, six columns of them w ere observed 

 to ascend from the boughs of an apple-tree, some in a 

 perpendicular and others in an oblique direction, to 

 the height of fifty or sixty feet. Their bite was so en- 

 venomed, that it was attended by violent and alarm- 

 ing inflammation ; and one when killed usually con- 

 tained as much blood as would cover three or four 

 square inches of walP. Our great poet Spenser seems 

 to have witnessed a similar appearance of them, which 

 furnished him with the following beautiful simile : 



As when a swarme of gnats at eventide 



Out of the fennes of Allan doe arise, 



Their murmuring small trumpets sownden wide, 



Whiles in the air their clustriiig army flies, 



That as a cloud doth seem to dim the skies ; 



^ Germar's Magazin der Entomologie, i. 137. 

 " PMlos. Trans. 1767, 111-13. 

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