156 History of Animal Plagues. 



army, then encamped on the Curragh of Kildare.' ^ ' Earth- 

 ! quake of Smyrna. Swarms of insects foreboded a pestilence ; an 

 epidemic catarrh followed all over Europe, beginning among 

 horses and ending with men, as is frequently the case/ '^ 



Great swarms of insects are mentioned by Sir Thomas Moly- 

 neux as infesting Ireland and eating up everything of the herbage 

 and leaves of trees and plants. In this account' concerning the 

 swarms of insects that of late years have much infested some 

 parts of the province of Connaught, in Ireland/ he says, 'The 

 first time great numbers of insects were taken notice of in this 

 kingdom, I find, was in the year 1688. They appeared on the 

 south-west coast of the county of Galloway (Galway), brought 

 thither by a south-west wind, — one of the common, I might 

 almost say trade-winds, of this country, it blows so much more 

 from this quarter in Ireland than all the rest of the compass.^ 

 They passed inland towards Headford, ' and in the adjacent 

 country, multitudes of them showed themselves among the trees 

 and hedges in the day-time, hanging by the boughs, thousands 

 together, in clusters, sticking to the back one of another, as in 

 the manner of bees when they swarm. . . . Those that were 

 travelling on the roads or abroad in the fields found it very un- 

 easy to make their way through them, they would so beat and 

 knock themselves against their faces in their flight, and with such 

 a force as to smart the place where they hit, and leave a slight 

 mark behind them. ... A short while after their coming, they 

 had so entirely eat up and destroyed all the leaves of the trees 



^ Dr Thompson. Annals of Influenza, Sydenham Soc. 1852. 



^ T. Forster. Atmospherical Origin of Epidemic Disorders of Health, p. 162. 

 A curious superstition was formerly prevalent regarding St Stephen's Day (Dec. 

 26th), viz. that horses should then, after being first well galloped, be copiously let 

 blood, to insure them against disease in the following year. In Barnaby Googe's 

 translation of Naogeorgus, the following lines occur relative to this popular notion : 



'Then foUoweth Saint Stephen's Day, whereon doth every man 

 His horses jaunt and course abrode, as swiftly as he can. 

 Until they doe extreemely sweate, and then they let them blood, 

 For this being done upon this day, they say doth do them good. 

 And keeps them from all maladies and sicknesse through the yeare. 

 As if that Steven any time tooke charge of horses heare.' 



The origin of this practice is very ancient and somewhat obscure, but the anti- 

 quary Douee supposes it to have been introduced into Britain by the Danes. 



