RAVAGES OF LOCUSTS. 



251 



damage the country sustained exceeded computation,* 

 They have frequently come also from Africa into 

 Italy and Spain. In the year 591 an infinite army 

 of locusts, of a size unusually large, ravaged a con- 

 siderable part of Italy, and being at last cast into the 

 sea, (as seems foj the most part to be their fate,) 

 a pestilence, it is alleged, arose from their stench, 

 which carried off nearly a million of men and beasts. 

 In the Venetian territory, likewise, in 1478, more 

 than 30,000 persons are said to have perished in a 

 famine chiefly occasioned by the depredations of 

 locusts.*)" 



* Bingley, Anim. Biog., iii, 280. 

 t Mouffet, Theatr. Insect., 123. 



Locust. 



