216 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



darkened, and all its produce, whether herb or tree, so 

 devoured that not the least vestige of green is left in 

 either'. — But it is not necessary for me to enlarge 

 further upon a history the circumstances of which are 

 so well known to you. 



To this species of devastation Africa in general 

 seems always to have been peculiarly subject. This 

 may be gathered from the law in Cyrenaica mentioned 

 by Pliny, by which the inhabitants were enjoined to 

 destroy the locusts in three different states, three times 

 in the year — first their eggs, then their young, and 

 lastly the perfect insect''. And not without reason was 

 such a law enacted ; for Orosius tells us that in the year 

 of the world 3,800 Africa was infested by such infi- 

 nite myriads of these animals, that, having devoured 

 every green thing, after flying off to sea they were 

 drowned, and being cast upon the shore they emitted 

 a stench greater than could have been produced by the 

 carcases of 100,000 men*^. St. Augustine also men- 

 tions a plague to have arisen in that country from the 

 sante cause, which destroyed ho less than 800,000 per- 

 sons (octingenta hominum milUa) in the kingdom of Ma- 

 sanissa alone, and many more in the territories border- 

 ing upon the sea''. 



From Africa this plague was occasionally imported 

 into Italy and Spain ; and a historian quoted in Mouffet 

 relates that in the year 591 an infinite army of locusts, 

 of a size unusually large, grievously ravaged part of 



* Exod. X, 5. 14, 15, " nut. Nat. 1. xi. c. 29. A similar 

 law was enacted in Lemnos,by which every one Mas compelled to bring 

 a certain measure of locusts annually to the magistrates. Plin. ibid. 



* Oros. contra Pag. 1. v, c. 2. ^ Lesser, L. 247. note 46. 



