THE LOCUST. 179 



Locusts in Sneuwberg. 



patches that they appear like so many swarms of 

 bees; and in this manner they rest till day-light. 

 At these times it is that the farmers have any 

 chance of destroying them, which they are some- 

 times able in a great measure to effect, by driv- 

 ing among them a flock of two or three thousand 

 sheep : by the restlessness of these, great quanti- 

 ties of them are trampled to death. This year, 

 (1797) was the third of their continuance in 

 Sneuwberg; and their increase, according to Mr. 

 Barrow's account, had far exceeded that of a 

 geometrical progression whose ratio is a mil- 

 lion. This district, for ten years preceding 

 their present visit, was entirely free from 

 them. Their former exit was somewhat singular. 

 All the full-grown insects were driven into the 

 sea by a tempestuous north-west wind, and were 

 afterwards cast upon the beach, where, it is said, 

 they formed a bank of three or four feet high 



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that extended a distance of neaily fifty English 

 miles; and it is asserted, that when this mass be- 

 came putrid, and the wind was at south-east, the 

 stench was sensibly felt in several parts of Sneuw- 

 berg, distant at least a hundred and fifty miles. 



There is no animal in the creation which mul- 

 tiplies so fast as thee, if the sun be warm, and 

 the soil in which their eggs are deposited be dry. 

 But damp climates are so contrary to their nature, 

 that so far from encreasing they can barely exist 

 in them. The female locust, when she lays her 

 eggs, which nre generally about forty in number, 



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