98 ON THE EXCESSIVE APPEARANCE OF INSECTS. 



timber ; and in a short time the leaves of all the trees for 

 many miles round were so totally destroyed by them, that 

 at midsummer the country wore the aspect of the depth 

 of winter. 



(395.) In 1788 and 1794 two-thirds of the crop of cotton 

 in Crooked Island, one of the Bahamas, was destroyed by 

 a lepidopterous larva. 



In 1734 and 1735 vast swarms of a beetle devoured al- 

 most every vegetable production of the island of Barbadoes, 

 particularly the potatoe. 



In 1786 the turnip crops in Devonshire were destroyed, 

 to the value of 100,0007., by the turnip flea. 



In 1735 the Plusia gamma, which is a pretty common 

 moth with us, increased to such an extent in France as to 

 infest the whole country. Vast numbers of the larvse tra- 

 velled from field to field, and in gardens devoured every- 

 thing, leaving only the stalks and veins of the leaves. 



(396.) In 1731 the oaks in France were terribly devas- 

 tated by an excessive increase of Hypogymna dispar (the 

 gipsy moth) ; and in 1797 many of the pine forests about 

 Bayreuth suffered a similar injury. 



In 1782 the brown-tail moth caused great alarm to the 

 inhabitants of the vicinity of the metropolis, when rewards 

 were offered for collecting the caterpillars ; and the church- 

 wardens and overseers of the parishes attended to see them 

 burnt by bushels. 



(397.) There is a small beetle, the Bostriclius iypogra- 

 phus, which bores into the fir. This insect was particu- 

 larly prevalent about the year 1665 : it reappeared . in 

 1757, redoubled its injuries in 1769, and arrived at its 

 height in 1783, when the number of trees destroyed by it 

 in the above forest alone was calculated at a million and a 



