VOL. I.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 4^ 



judged to purify the water : whence also Lunenburg salt Is preferred before any 

 from salt springs. 



Stvarms of strange and mischievous Insects, in New Englatid. 



N'' 8, p. 137. 



Some few years since in New England, there was such a swarm of a certain 

 kind of insects,* that for the space of 200 miles they destroyed all the trees of 

 the country. There appeared innumerable little holes in the ground, out of 

 which they broke forth in the form of maggots, which turned into flies, with 

 a kind of tail or sting, which they struck into the tree, and thereby envenomed 

 and killed it. 



The like plague is said to happen frequently in the country of the Cosaks or 

 the Ukrane, where in dry summers they are infested with such swarms of lo- 

 custs, driven thither by an east or south-east wind, that they darken the air 

 in the fairest weather, and devour all the corn of that country ; laying their 

 eggs in autumn, and then dying ; but the e^gs, of which every one lays two 

 or three hundred, hatching the next spring, produce again such a number of 

 locusts, as to be far more destructive than before, unless rains fall, which kill 

 both eggs and the insects themselves, or unless a strong north or north-west 

 wind arise, which drives them into the Euxine sea. 



The Brooding of Snakes and Vipers. iV** 8, j&. 138. 



There is this difference between the brooding of snakes and vipers, that the 

 former lay their eggs in dung-hills, by the warmth of which they are hatched ; 

 but the latter brood their eggs within their bellies, and bring forth live 

 vipers. 



Some Observations of odd Constitutions of Bodies. By Mr. Oldenburg. 



N'' 8, p. 138. 



The first of these observations gives an account of a person becoming dropsical, 

 from taking cold by spending many nights in the open air, in making astronomical 

 observations — ^The second contains a relation of a young girl of 13, who from 

 the time she was six years old and began to be about her mother in the kitchen, 

 would, as often as she was bid to bring her salt, fill her pockets with it and eat 

 it as other children do sugar ; whence she was so dried up and grown so stiff^ 

 that she could not stir her limbs, and was thereby starved to death — The third 



* What these insects were it is not very easy to determine. 

 VOL. I. G 



