AND IN 1688. 249 



cient. Mr. Scott informed me, that during the 

 twelve years he had been at Ormean, he had not, 

 until this season, seen a cockchafer ; and that the 

 insect seemed equally unknown to all the labourers 

 in his employment. I make no doubt, however, it 

 would not thus have escaped the more prying eye of 

 the Entomologist. 



In 1688, and for some years afterwards, a host of 

 these insects occasioned no inconsiderable alarm and 

 distress in the county of Galway, and even extended 

 their ravages as far as the river Shannon. They ap- 

 peared in such multitudes as to darken the air, and 

 give serious annoyance to all who were travelling on 

 the roads, or abroad in the fields. " A short while 

 after their coming, they had so entirely eat up and 

 destroyed all the leaves of trees, for some miles 

 round about, that the whole country, although it was 

 in the middle of summer, was left as bare and naked 

 as if it had been in the depth of winter, making a 

 most unseemly, and, indeed, frightful appearance ; 

 and the noise they made while they were seizing and 

 devouring this their prey, was as surprising ; for the 

 grinding of the leaves in the mouths of this vast 

 multitude all together, made a soimd very much re- 

 sembling the sawing of timber." * 



* Letters from Dr. T. MoljTieux, F.R.S., to the Lord Bishop of 

 Clogher, dated Dublin, 5th Oct. 1697, published in " Boate's Natural 

 History of Ireland," DubUn, 1726, p. 165. 



