Epidemics. 155 



But, upon the whole, vegetable life, from the green sward 

 in the field to the stately forest tree, enjoys an immunity 

 which scarcely pertains to any class of animal life from 

 insect life to the huge pachydermata, and, last of all, to man 

 himself. 



Preceding human epidemics, insects, gnats (and spiders 

 in Germany, 1612, and in Spain, 1709), and locusts, with 

 caterpillars in ancient and modern times, have swarmed 

 and infested regions and tracts of land in a most destructive 

 form, and frogs, etc., in a most unpleasant manner; but, 

 in proportion as we admit their predominance in certain 

 years, their disappearance in many instances indicates a 

 greater blight to their onward procreation and increase than 

 did their first development into a temporary pest, so that 

 here again we meet with isolated increase and destruction 

 almost in one and the same breath. 



Epidemics have proved destructive to special classes of the 

 animal kingdom, which indicates a power of destructive 

 agency that at once excites curiosity, and claims an almost 

 solemn reflection as to the guiding hand which can limit 

 and determine over a widespread field such precise selec- 

 tion. 



In Spain, in 1761, the dogs died in great abundance from 

 some particular epidemic then prevalent. Their brother 

 chips in zoological classification, but with tail and toes, that 

 have created an invidious wall of separation, were brought 

 into a kind of parallel approximation in the United 

 States of America in 1771, when almost all the foxes died 

 out. 



No less singular was the isolation of the tenants of the 

 oceans in 1529, for this year epidemic disease proved destruc- 

 tive to the porpoises in the Baltic. Fishes, lobsters, and 

 oysters each in their turn have proved victims to pestilential 

 disease. Birds, both domesticated and wild, have from 



