ON THE LAMELLICORNES. 523 



swarms of their parents had done abroad, for this destruc- 

 tive brood, lying underground, eat up the roots of corn and 

 grass, and thus consumed the support both of man and beast. 

 This plague was happily checked several ways. High winds 

 and wet mi sling weather destroyed many millions of them in 

 a day, and when this constitution of the air prevailed, they 

 were so enfeebled, that they would let go their hold, and 

 drop to the ground from the branches, and so little a fall as 

 this was quite sufficient to disable, and sometimes perfectly 

 to kill them. Nay, it was observable that even when they 

 were most vigorous, a slight blow would for some time stun 

 them, if not deprive them of life. During these unfavour- 

 able seasons of the weather, the swine and poultry of the 

 country would watch under the trees for their falling, and 

 feed and fatten on them, and even the poorer sort of the 

 country people, the country then labouring under a scarcity 

 of provisions, had a way of dressing them, and lived upon 

 them as food. In a little time it was found that smoke was 

 another thing very offensive to them, and by burning heath, 

 fern, &c. the gardens were secured, or if the insects had 

 already entered, they were thus driven out again. Towards 

 the latter end of summer they retired of themselves, and 

 so totally disappeared, that in a few days you could not see 

 one left. A year or two ago, all along the south-west coast 

 of the county of Gal way, for some miles together, there were 

 found dead on the shore such infinite multitudes of them, and 

 in such vast heaps, that, by a moderate estimate, it was com- 

 puted that there could not be less than forty or fifty horse- 

 loads in all, which was a new colony, or a supernumerary 

 swarm from the same place whence the first stock came in 

 1688, driven by the wind from their native land, which I 

 conclude to be Normandy or Brittany in France, it being a 

 country much infested by this insect, and from whence Eng- 

 land has heretofore been pestered in a similar manner with 



