ON THE EXCESSIVE APPEARANCE OF INSECTS. 99 



half, and the inhabitants were threatened with a total sus- 

 pension of the working of their mines, and with consequent 

 ruin. 



(398.) One of the greatest occasional pests in the form 

 of an insect is the locust. Orosius stated, that, in the year 

 of the world 3800, Africa was infested with such infinite 

 myriads of these animals, that, having devoured every 

 green thing, and afterwards flown off to sea, they were 

 drowned ; and being cast up on the shore by the tide, they 

 rotted, and emitted a stench greater than could have been 

 produced by the carcases of 100,000 men. St. Augustine 

 also mentions a plague " to have arisen in that country 

 from the same cause, which destroyed no less than 800,000 

 persons in the kingdom of Masinissa alone, and many more 

 in the territories bordering upon the sea. 



(399.) In one year a million of men perished from the 

 stench of the carcases of the insects ; in another 30,000 

 died of starvation ; and Barrow mentions that in 1784 an 

 area of nearly 2000 miles was covered by them. 



In 1778 and 1780 the empire of Morocco was so infested, 

 that vast numbers of the inhabitants perished, and the roads 

 and streets exhibited the unburied carcases of the dead. 



(400.) These instances I have selected from the truly 

 delightful work of Kirby and Spence ; but I might mention 

 many more instances from my own recollection. I have, 

 however, given enough to show that the relation of particu- 

 lar insects to other parts of creation is sometimes disturbed, 

 and that any species may appear in this exaggerated man- 

 ner. 



(401.) Our naturalist Gilbert White states that in 1783 

 there were myriads of wasps, which would have devoured 

 all the produce of my garden, had we not set the boys to 



