568 Insects. 



mischief; and the whole swarm proceed onward, to settle 

 upon the labours of some less fortunate country. But 

 wretched is the district upon which they fix ; they ravage 

 the meadow and the corn land ; strip the trees of their 

 leaves, and the gardens of their beauty ; the visitation 

 of a few minutes destroys the expectations of a year ; and 

 a famine but too frequently ensues. In their native cli- 

 mates they are not so injurious as in the south of Europe, 

 for in Syria and Palestine, though the plain and the forest 

 be stripped of their verdure, the power of vegetation is 

 so great, that an interval of three or four days repairs 

 the calamity ; but our verdure is the produce of a season ; 

 and we must wait till the ensuing spring repairs the 

 damage. Besides, in their long nights to this part of the 

 world, the Locusts are famished by the tediousness of 

 their journey, and are therefore more voracious wherever 

 they happen to settle. But it is not by what they devour 

 that they do so much damage as by what they destroy. 

 Their very bite contaminates the plant, and injures its 

 future vegetation. To use the expression of the husband- 

 man, they burn whatever they touch, and leave the marks 

 of their devastation for two or three years ensuing. And 

 if so noxious while living, they are still more so when 

 dead ; for wherever they fall they infect the air in such 

 a manner that the smell is insupportable. 



In the year 1690 clouds of Locusts were seen to enter 

 Eussia in three different places ; and thence to spread 

 themselves over Poland and Lithuania in such astonish- 

 ing multitudes, that the air was darkened, and the earth 

 covered with their numbers. In some places they were 

 seen lying dead, heaped upon each other to the depth of 

 four feet ; in others they covered the surface like a black 

 cloth : the trees bent beneath their weight, and the dam- 

 age which the country sustained exceeded computation. 

 In Bar bary their numbers are formidable, and their visits 

 frequent, In the year 1724 Dr. Shaw was a witness of 

 their devastations in that country. Their first appearance 

 was about the latter end of March, when the wind had 

 been southerly for some time. In the beginning of April 

 their numbers were so much increased, that in the heat 

 of the day they formed themselves into large swarms. 



