162 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



in considerable numbers, but providentially they goon perished without 

 propagating. These were evidently stragglers from the vast swarms which 

 in the preceding year did such infinite damage in Wallachia, Moldavia, 

 Transylvania, Hungary, and Poland. One of these swarms, which enter- 

 ed Transylvania in August, was several hundred fathoms in width (at 

 Vienna tiie breadth of one of them was three miles), and extended to so 

 great a length as to be four hours in passing over the Red Tower ; and 

 such was its density that it totally intercepted the solar light, so that 

 when they flew low one person could not see another at the distance of 

 twenty paces. ^ A similar account has been given me by a friend of mine^ 

 long resident in India. He relates that when at Poonah he was a witness 

 to an immense army of locusts which ravaged the Mahratta country, and 

 was supposed to come from Arabia (this, if correct, is a strong proof of 

 their power to pass the sea under favorable circumstances). The column 

 they composed, my friend was informed, extended five hundred miles ; 

 and so compact was it, when on the wing, that, like an eclipse, it com- 

 pletely hid the sun, so that no shadow was cast by any object, and some 

 lofty tombs distant from his residence not more than two hundred yards 

 were rendered quite invisible. This was not the Locusta migratoria, but 

 a red species ; which circumstance much increased the horror of the scene ; 

 for, clustering upon the trees after they had stripped them of their foliage, 

 they imparted to them a sanguine hue. The peach was the last tree that 

 they touched. 



Dr. Clarke, to give some idea of the infinite numbers of these animals, 

 compares them to a flight of snow when the flakes are carried obliquely by 

 the wind. They covered his carriage and horses, and the Tartars assert 

 that people are sometimes suffocated by them. The whole face of nature 

 might have been described as covered by a living veil. They consisted 

 of two species, L. tatarica and migratoria ; the first is almost twice the 

 size of the second, and, because it precedes it, is called by the Tartars 

 the herald or messenger.^ The account of another traveler, Mr. Barrow, 

 of their ravages in the southern parts of Africa (in 1784 and 1797) is still 

 more striking : an area of nearly two thousand square miles might be said 

 literally to be covered by them. When driven into the sea by a N. W. 

 wind, they formed upon the shore for fifty miles a bank three or four feet 

 high, and when the wind was S. E. the stench was so powerful as to be 

 smelt at the distance of 150 miles.^ 



From 1778 to 1780, the empire of Marocco was terribly devastated 

 by them ; every green thing was eaten up, not even the bitter bark of the 

 orange and pomegranate escaping — a most dreadful famine ensued. The 

 poor were seen to wander over the country deriving a miserable subsistence 

 from the roots of plants ; and women and children followed the camels 

 from whose dung they picked the indigested grains of barley, which they 

 devoured with avidity : in consequence of this, vast numbers perished, 

 and the roads and streets exhibited the unburied carcasses of the dead. 

 On this sad occasion, fathers sold their children, and husbands their wives.* 

 When they visit a country, says Mr. Jackson, speaking of the same 



> Phihs. Trans, xlvi. 30. 



* IMajor Moor, aullior of The Narrative of Captain Little's Detachment, The Hindu Pan- 

 theon. Ace. 

 3 Travtls, i. 348. « Travels, ice. 257. » Soulhey's Thalaba, i. 171. 



