History of Animal Plagues. 9 



Homer docs not forget to indicate the cause or the probably 

 contagious character of the pestilence^ by describing the precau- 

 tions taken in the Greek camp to cleanse and purify, and to 

 throw all filth and obnoxious matter into the sea. 



B.C. 1 100. There were twenty-five years' drought in Spain, 

 so that there was neither food for man nor pasture for cattle. 

 Springs dried up, rivers failed or became stagnant, and only a 

 few olive trees on the banks of the Ebro and Guadalquiver 

 remained to testify to the little vitality vet left in the veo-etable 

 kingdom. The land was full of ' dreadful mortalities, plagues, 

 and miseries of every description.' 



The occurrence of drouohts almost invariably, as we will I 

 have occasion to notice, forebodes disease to man and beast, and 

 they have ever been looked upon with dread. 



' While travelling through the country, I received several 

 vivid descriptions of the effects of a late great drought, and the 

 account of this may throw some light on the cases where vast 

 numbers of animals have been embedded together. The period 

 included between the years 1827 and 1830 is called the "Gran 

 seco," or the <2;reat drousrht. Durino- this time so little rain fell 

 that the vegetation, even to the thistles, failed; the brooks were 

 dried up, and the whole country assumed the appearance of a 

 dusty high-road. This was especially the case in the northern 

 part of the province of Buenos Ayres and the southern part of St 

 Fe, Very great numbers of birds, wild animals, cattle, and 

 horses perished from the want of food and water. A man told 

 me that the deer used to come into his courtyard to the well 

 which he had been obliged to dig to supply his own family with 

 water, and that the partridges had hardly strength to fly away 

 when pursued. The lowest estimation of the loss of cattle in 

 the province of Buenos Ayres alone was taken at one million 

 head. A proprietor at San Pedro had previously to this 20,000 

 cattle; at the end not one remained.'^ 



jj.c. 753. Plutarch^ informs us that soon after the uiiu-dcr 

 of Tatius a great pestilence broke out at Rome, which was in- 



' C. Darwin. Journal of Researches. 6lh edit. London, 1S45, p. 133. 



'■' Vita Romulus. 



