INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 215 



beasts. In the Venetian territory, also, in 1478 more than 

 30,000 persons are said to have perished in a famine oc- 

 casioned by these terrific scourges. Many other instances 

 of their devastations in Europe, in France, Spain, Italy, 

 Germany, & c . a , are recorded by the same author. In 

 1650 a cloud of them was seen to enter Russia in three 

 different places, which from thence passed' over into Po- 

 land and Lithuania, where the air was darkened by their 

 numbers. In some places they were seen lying dead heaped 

 one upon another to the depth of four feet; in others they 

 covered the surface like a black cloth, the trees bent with 

 their weight, and the damage they did exceeded all com- 

 putation 5 . At a later period in Languedoc when the sun 

 became hot they took wing and fell upon the corn, de- 

 vouring both leaf and ear, and that with such expedition 

 that in three hours they would consume a whole field. 

 After having eaten up the corn they attacked the vines, 

 the pulse, the willows, and lastly the hemp notwithstanding 

 its bitterness . Sir H. Davy informs us d that the French 

 government in 1 8 1 3 issued a decree with a view to occasion 

 the destruction of grasshoppers. 



Even this happy island, so remarkably distinguished 

 by its exemption from most of those scourges to which 

 other nations are exposed, was once alarmed by the ap- 

 pearance of locusts. In 1748 they were observed here in 

 considerable numbers, but providentially they soon pe^ 

 rished without propagating. These were evidently strag* 

 glers from the vast swarms which in the preceding year 

 did such infinite damage in Wallachia, Moldavia, Tran- 

 sylvania, Hungary, and Poland. One of these swarms, 



a MoufFet, 123. b Bingley,iii. 258. c PhUos. Trans. 168& 



d Elements of Agricultural Chemistry, 233. 



