INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 127 
alarmed by the appearance of locusts. In 1748 they were observed here 
in considerable numbers, but providentially they soon 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 -entered 
Transylvania in August, was several hundred fathoms in width (at Vienna 
the 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 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 favourable circumstances). The column they com- 
posed, my friend was informed, extended five hundred miles; and so com- 
pact was it, when on the wing, that, like an eclipse, it completely hid the 
sun, so that no shadow was cast by any object, and some lofty tombs dis- 
tant 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, cluster- 
ing upon the trees after they had stripped them of their foliage, they im- 
parted 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 con- 
sisted 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 traveller, Mr. Bar- 
row, 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 subsist- 
ence from the roots of plants ; and women and children followed the 
camels from whose dung they picked the undigested 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 
1 Philos. Trans. xlvi. 80. 
2 Major Moor, author of Zhe Narrative of Captain Little’s Detachment, The Hindu 
Pantheon, &e. 
5 Travels, i. 848, + Travels, &e, 257, 
