LOCUST. 
309 
The locusts commit the most terrible ravages in the 
warmer parts of the globe, where they descend in 
legions and devour every blade of grass, and strip 
every tree of its leaves ; so that a whole province, 
which but a few days before boasted its fertility, is 
presently reduced to a desert. The surface of the 
earth appears entirely covered with them to a great 
distance, and the noise they make while feeding 
may be distinctly heard. Their incredible num- 
bers are formidable even in death; for an event 
which on other accounts is so desirable, is in those 
tropical countries to be dreaded ; since the putre- 
faction arising from their bodies has been considered 
as a cause of pestilence. 
Flights of locusts have occasionally appeared in 
different parts of Europe, and a few swarms in the 
year 1693 visited some parts of Wales. Germany 
in the year 1732 suffered considerably by their 
ravages, and in the years 1747 and 1748, they paid 
a most destructive visit to several parts of the Con- 
tinent. Their proceedings in these two years are 
regularly detailed in the forty-sixth volume of the 
Philosophical Transactions, from whence we have 
extracted the following account. 
The first swarms appeared in Transylvania, in 
August 1747 ; these were succeeded by others, 
which were so surprisingly numerous, that they 
were full four hours in passing over a place called 
the Red Tower, and they flew so close that they 
made a sort of noise in the air by the beating of 
their wings against one another. The width of the 
