ENTOMOLOGICAL CABINET. 



which has produced much calamity among the 

 people. 



In the year 1688, the Cock-chafers appeared on 

 the hedges and trees of the south-west coast of the 

 county of Galway, in clusters of thousands, clinging 

 to each others' backs in the manner of bees when 

 they swarm. During the day they continued quiet, 

 but towards sun-set the whole were in motion ; and 

 the humming noise of their wings sounded like 

 distant drums. Their numbers were so great that, 

 for the space of two or three square miles, they 

 entirely darkened the air. Persons travelling on the 

 roads, or who were abroad in the fields, found it 

 difficult to make their way home, as the insects 

 were continually beating against their faces, and 

 caused great pain. In a very short time the leaves 

 of all the trees for some miles round were destroyed, 

 leaving the whole country, though it was near 

 midsummer, as naked and desolate as it would have 

 been in the middle of winter. The noise that these 

 enormous swarms made in seizing and devouring 

 the leaves, was so loud as to have been compared 

 to the distant sawing of timber. Swine and poultry 

 destroyed them in vast numbers. These waited 

 under the trees for the clusters dropping, and 

 devoured such swarms as to become fat from them 

 alone. Even the native Irish, from the insects having 

 eaten up the whole of the produce of the ground, 

 adopted a mode of dressing them, and used them 

 as food. Towards the end of summer they dis- 

 appeared so suddenly that in a few days there was 

 not a single one left. 



