[ 2 9S 1 
* 
feem almoft extinft in one feafon, and fwarm out 
again in another, as if there had been a new crea- 
tion of them. One year, the wall-fruits are de- 
voured by earwigs; another, we are pefter’d every- 
where, and even in our clofeft chambers, with un- 
ufual multitudes of the common file. One year 
the wafp predominates ; another, the gnat ; and a 
third, the cale-caterpillar. One year, the farmer 
complains of a worm, hardly known to him be- 
fore, that deftroys his corn ; and the gardener does 
the fame another, in refped to an infeft that falls 
greedily on his feeds, as foon as they are committed 
to the ground. The African locufts come fome 
years into Spain in fuch (warms, that they cover the 
face of the earth; and when they have devoured the 
whole herbage of the country, retire again to their 
own, and do not \if\t Spain in the like numbers for 
feveral years. Large old orchards are fome years fud- 
denly dripped of all their blofToms and leaves, by a 
prodigious increafe of the apple-tree-worm; and 
groves of oak have been ferved in the fame manner 
by the caterpillar peculiar to that tree. This mud 
needs give a check to the growth of the tree more 
than equivalent to the great increafe promifed at 
fuch a time by the extraordinary redundancy of the 
vegetative fpirit. 
I have now finifhed what I had to fay on this 
furprifing fubjed, at which fome gentlemen ftupidly 
important, may laugh, as at an affair not worthy of 
fo much notice, and fo many words ; but I am per- 
fuaded, my Lord Orrery , who regards not things 
by their bulk, but their excellence, will fee the wif- 
dom and power of God as glorioufly difplayed in 
C^q 2 this 
