HISTORY OF INSECTS. 59 



green leaf, and eventually reaching the sea, perished 

 by drowning ; and the mass of their corrupted 

 bodies created so great a stench, that a pestilence 

 ensued, which carried off nearly a million human 

 beings. 



183. We are told by Mouffet, that in the year 

 591 a swarm of locusts visited Italy ; they pur- 

 sued their destructive course, devouring every 

 thing, until they reached the sea, in which they 

 perished. The pestilence arising from the stench 

 carried off men and beasts to the number of more 

 than a million. 



184. In 1478, the Venetian territory was 

 visited by a swarm of locusts, which so com- 

 pletely destroyed the crops as to cause a famine, 

 in which more than thirty thousand persons died 

 of starvation. 



185. In 1650, a swarm of locusts entered 

 Russia. As they passed, the air was darkened 

 by their numbers ; they covered the face of the 

 earth ; the trees bent with their weight : and in 

 places the mass of their dead bodies was four 

 feet in depth. 



186. In 1748, a swarm of locusts visited the 

 Austrian dominions : at Vienna the breadth of 

 the swarm exceeded three miles, and so darkened 

 the air, that one person could not see another at 

 the distance of twenty paces. 



187- Major Moor witnessed in the Mahrattas 

 the ravages of a swarm of locusts, that was five 



