218 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



perished without propagating-. These were evidently 

 stragglers from the vast swarms which in the preced- 

 ing year did such infinite damage in Wallachia, Mol- 

 davia, Transylvania, Hungary, and Poland. One of 

 these swarms, which entered Transylvania in August, 

 was several hundred fathoms in width, (at Vienna the 

 breadth of one of them was three miles,) and extended 

 to so great a length as to be four hours in passing over 

 the Red Tower; and such was its density that it totally 

 intercepted the solar light, so that when they flew low 

 one person could not see another at the distance of 

 twenty paces'^. A similar account has been given me 

 by a friend of mine'' long resident in India. He re- 

 lates that when at Poonah he was witness to an im- 

 mense army of locusts which ravaged the Mahratta 

 country, and was supposed to come from Arabia (this, 

 if correct, is a strong proof of their power to pass the 

 sea under favourable circumstances). The column 

 they composed, my friend was informed, extended five 

 hundred miles ; and so compact was it, when on the 

 wing, that like an eclipse it completely hid the sun, so 

 that no shadow was cast by any object, and some lofty 

 tombs, distant from his residence not more than two 

 hundred yards, were rendered quite invisible. This 

 was not the GryUus migratorius^ L., but a red spe- 

 cies ; which circumstance much increased the horror of 

 the scene ; for, clustering upon the trees after they had 

 stripped them of their foliage, they imparted to them 

 a sanguine hue. The peach was the last tree that they 

 touched. 



" Philos. Trans, xlvi. 30. * Major Moor, author of Tke JVar- 



ratiue of Capluin LitUei Detachment, The Hindu Pantheon, &c. 



