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VOL. XVIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 6^17 



Account of Locusts in JVales : in a Letter from Mr. Edw. Floyd, at Oxford, 



to Dr. Lister. N" 208, p. 45. 



You have probably been already informed from some other parts of the 

 kingdom, of sivarms of locusts that have lately appeared on our British 

 coasts. They were first seen in Wales about the 20th of October, scat- 

 tered about the fields in Marthery parish, Pembrokeshire. In North Wales, 

 two vast swarms of them had been seen in the air, not far from D61 gelheu, 

 a market-town of Merionethshire, and about the same time that those 

 others in Pembrokeshire had been observed in the fields. They are of the 

 very same species with some African locusts in my custody, called the pil- 

 grim locust. 



It is in length, from the head to the tips of the wings, 3 inches and 4-, 

 of a reddish colour all over except the wings ; the eyes are prominent and very 

 large, somewhat of the form and size of gromwell seeds, of a reddish colour, 

 elegantly streaked : the antennae are about the thickness of a hog's bristle, and 

 curiously geniculated : the first pair of legs are not quite an inch long ; the se- 

 cond somewhat more ; but the third 2 inches and 4- : these hind-legs are very 

 beautiful ; for the thighs are hexangular, and elegantly scaled on the outside, 

 with a black list, extended lengthways through the middle of them ; the shanks 

 are of a lively red colour, adorned on the hind-part with two orders of small 

 sharp prickles, placed not opposite to each other, but alternately : the wings 

 are about 3 inches long, resembling very much those of the larger libellulge, or 

 dragon-fiies, but all over garnished (the outer wings at least) with reticulated 

 black spots. I see little reason to doubt but that these are the very same 

 species of locusts, so famous in history for their wandering over, and depopu- 

 lating whole countries. 



Extract of another Letter to the same Purpose, from the same. N° 208, p. 48. 



Oxford, Feb. 20, 1 693-4. — I here send you a note out of a MS. intituled, 

 The History of Pembrokeshire. It was written about the year l603, by one 

 Mr. George Owen, a gentleman of that county, who seems to have been a 

 person of considerable accuracy and veracity. The extract to this effect : About 

 the beginning of June, in the year 1601, a piece of ground, of about 200 English 

 acres, was suddenly covered, as if the same had fallen in a shower out of the air, 

 with a kind of caterpillars or green worms, (insects ? ) having many legs, and bare 

 without hair. They were found in such abundance, that a man could not tread 



VOL. III. 4 K 



