266 History of Animal Plagues. 



tioned as Bliadhain an air — ' the year of the slaughter.' ^ Dur- 

 ing the progress of a bill passed against forestalling and regrat- 

 ing, by the Irish Parliament, it was ordered that ' the committee 

 be empowered to receive a clause to prevent persons from selling 

 distempered cattle, knowing them to be so/ ^ Hughes states 

 that many dogs went mad in Barbadoes during this year. ^ 



A.D. 1742. Two comets were seen. The winter was long 

 and cold. Epidemic influenza in England. For the month of 

 May, Huxham reports: 'Not only were these rains most grateful 

 in watering the fields, but also in destroying caterpillars. For 

 the disease in vegetation was very severe at that time. And 

 besides, it gently hindered the attacks on the crops of a new 

 race of black caterpillars, for they grew healthy and abundant. 

 These caterpillars came in vast crowds from the mountains like 

 a torrent, and threatened to devastate the whole land.' In Au- 

 gust there were '^innumerable wasps, tree-crickets or cicadae, 

 caterpillars, and many mad dogs.' * 



Rutty remarks for Ireland : ' The cold and dry spring was 

 attended with disorders not unlike those of the two preceding 

 and cold springs, particularly colds, and chincoughs, and the 

 measles w^ere exceedingly frequent ; the infirm, both old and 

 young, and particularly the asthmatic, suffered greatly, and not 

 less remarkably than did the vegetables during this sharp, cold 

 season and prevalence of N.E. winds ; and the cold affected 

 not only mankind but the horses, and was fatal to several both 

 here and in England, particularly at Plymouth, where Huxham 

 observes that, in March, almost all the horses out of the stable 

 had the mange and a purulent cough. The summer was more 

 healthful than the spring, and the fever mentioned last year was 

 far less frequent, and disappeared entirely in winter.' ^ For April, 

 we are told that there was ' a most violent cold raging among 

 horses, which killed many of them.' ^ 



Upon the 26th of August, in Dublin, there occurred 'a sudden 

 and great shower of rain, with great lightning, which killed the 

 fish of all sorts in the Liffey, which came down the stream, 



^ Mr Curry to Dr Petrie, in pamphlet ' Famine in Ireland in 1740, 1741.' 

 ^ The Commons' Journal. ^ Sir R. H. Schomburgh. Hist, of Barbadoes. 

 * Huxham. Op. cit. . ^ Rutty. Op. cit. ^ Faidknet-'s Journal. 



