184 NATURALIST'S CABINET. 



Devastations committed by locusts. 



plants, and either to destroy or greatly to weaken 

 their vegetation. When dead, they infect the 

 air in such a manner that the stench is frequently 

 insupportable. Orosius says, that in the year of 

 the world 3800, Africa was infested with a mul- 

 titude of locusts. After having eaten up every 

 thing that was green, they flew off and were 

 drowned in the sea; where they caused such a 

 stench as could not have been equalled by the 

 putrefying carcases of a hundred thousand men. 

 A cloud of locusts were seen to enter Russia 

 in \6oO, (some writers say 1690) in three diffe- 

 rent places; and from thence they spread them- 

 selves over Poland, and Lithuania, in such asto- 

 nishing multitudes that the air was darkened. 



^-> * 



and the earth covered with their numbers. In 

 some places, they were seen lying dead, heaped 

 upon each other to the depth of four feet ; in 

 others they covered the surface of the ground 

 like a black cloth: the trees bent with their 

 weight; and the damage that the country sus- 

 tained exceeded computation. 



Their numbers in Barbary are often formida- 

 ble; and Dr. Shaw, as he informs us in his 

 Travels, was a witness of their devastations there 

 in 1724. Their first appearance ivas in the lat- 

 ter end of March, when the wind had been 

 southerly for some time. In the beginning of 

 April their numbers were so increased, that, in 

 the heat of the day, large swarms appeared like 

 qlouds, and darkened the sun. In the middle of 



