218 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1 SQ/ • 



titudes of them, and in such vast heaps, that by a moderate estimate, it was 

 computed there could not be less than 40 or 50 horse loads in all ; which was 

 a new colony, or supernumerary swarm from the same place, whence the 

 first stock came in lti88, driven by the wind to sea from their native land, 

 which I conclude to be Normandy or Britany in France, it being a country 

 much infested with this insect, and from whence England heretofore has been 

 pestered in the same manner with swarms of this vermin. But these meeting 

 with a contrary wind, before they could reach land, their progress was stopped, 

 and tired with their voyage, they were all driven into the sea, which by the 

 motion of its waves and tides, cast their floating bodies in heaps on the shore. 



It is observed that they seldom keep above a year together in a place, and 

 their usual stages or marches are computed to be about 6 miles in a year. 

 Hitherto their progress has been westerly, following the course of that wind 

 which blows most commonly in this country. 



These insects have been erroneously called locusts, but the true locust, much 

 resembling in shape a common grashopper, though larger, is quite a different 

 species of insect from this, which belongs to that tribe called by the naturalists 

 MXiOTTTi^oi;, or vaginipennis, the scarabaeus or beetle kind, that has strong thick 

 cases, to defend and cover their tender thin wings, that lie out of sight, and 

 next the body. And this species is certainly that particular beetle, called by 

 Aristotle, in his History of Animals, ju,£XoA«i/9£?, from its devouring the blossoms 

 of apple trees, and is the scarabaeus arboreus of Moufet and Cliarleton, called 

 by the English, dorrs, or hedge-chaffers, and by the French, les hannetons. 

 They are much of the size of the common black beetle, but of a brownish 

 colour, something near that of cinnamon ; they are thick set with a fine short 

 downy hair, that shows as if they were powdered all over with a fine sort of 

 dust ; the cases of their wings do not entirely cover all the back, for their long 

 peaked tails, where lie the organs for generation, reach a good way beyond 

 them ; and the indentures or joints on each side of their belly appear much 

 whiter than the rest; they are exactly figured by Dr. Lister, Scarab. Tab. Mut. 



A Letter from Ernest Tentzel, Historiographer to the Duke of Saxe Gotha, to 

 Anthony Magliabeclii* Librarian to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, concerning 

 the Skeleton of an Elephant dug up at Tonna [Tonne']. An Extract from the 

 Latin. 1SI°234, p. 757. 



As some persons, in Dec. 1695, were digging sand at the bottom of a hill 



* Although Magliabcchi could not boast of making useful or ingenious discoveries and improve- 

 ments in science, or of being the author of any great or important workj yet his astonishing aicaiory. 



