INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 217 



Italy ; and being; at last cast into the sea, from their 

 stench arose a pestilence which carried off near a mil- 

 lion of men and beasts. In the Venetian territory, also, 

 in 147^ more than 30,000 persons are said to have pe- 

 rished in a famine occasioned by these terrific scourges. 

 Many other instances of their devastations in Europe, 

 in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, &c.% are recorded 

 by the same author. In 1650 a cloud of them was seen 

 to enter Russia in three different places, which from 

 thence passed over into Poland and Lithuania, where 

 the air was darkened by their numbers. In some places 

 they were seen lying dead heaped one upon another 

 to the depth of four feet ; in otliers they covered the 

 surface like a black cloth, the trees bent with their 

 weight, and the damage they did exceeded all compu- 

 tation''. At a later period in Languedoc when the sun 

 became hot they took wing and fell upon the corn, de- 

 vouring both leaf and ear, and that with such expedi- 

 tion that in three hours they would consume a whole 

 field. After having eaten up the corn they attacked 

 the vines, the pulse, the willows, and lastly the hemp 

 notwithstanding its bitterness". Sir H. Davy informs 

 us^ that the French government in 1813 issued a de- 

 cree with a view to occasion the destruction of grass- 

 hoppers. 



Even this happy island, so remarkably distinguished 

 by its exemption from most of those scourges to which 

 other nations are exposed, was once alarmed bs the ap- 

 pearance of locusts. In 1748 they were observed here 

 in considerable numbers, but providentially they soon 



* Mouff.'t, 123. " Binglej, iii. 238. « Fhilos. Trans. 1686. 



** Elements uf Agricultural Chcinhtry, 233. 



