568 Insects. 
mischief; and the whole swarm proceed onward, to settle 
upon the labours of some less fortunate country. But 
wretched is the district upon which they fix ; they ravage 
the meadow and the corn land ; strip the trees of their 
leaves, and the gardens of their beauty ; the visitation 
of a few minutes destroys the expectations of a year ; and 
a famine but too frequently ensues. In their native cli- 
mates they are not so injurious as in the south of Europe, 
for in Syria and Palestine, though the plain and the forest 
be stripped of their verdure,' the power of vegetation is 
so great, that an interval of three or four days repairs 
the calamity ; but our verdure is the produce of a season ; 
and we must wait till the ensuing spring repairs the 
damage. Besides, in their long flights to this part of the 
world, the Locusts are famished by the tediousness of 
their journey, and are therefore more voracious wherever 
they happen to settle. But it is not by what they devour 
that they do so much damage as by what they destroy. 
Their very bite contaminates the plant, and injures its 
future vegetation. To use the expression of the husband- 
man, they burn whatever they touch, and leave the marks 
of their devastation for two or three years ensuing. And 
if so noxious while living, they are still more so when 
dead ; for wherever they fall they infect the air in such 
a manner that the smell is insupportable. 
In the year 1690 clouds of Locusts were seen to enter 
Russia in three different places ; and thence to spread 
themselves over Poland and Lithuania in such astonish- 
ing multitudes, that the air was darkened, and the earth 
covered with their numbers. In some places they were 
seen lying dead, heaped upon each other to the depth of 
four feet ; in others they covered the surface like a black 
cloth : the trees bent beneath their weight, and the dam- 
age which the country sustained exceeded computation. 
In Barbary their numbers are formidable, and their visits 
frequent. In the year 1724 Dr. Shaw was a witness of 
their devastations in that country. Their first appearance 
was about the latter end of March, when the wind had 
been southerly for some time. In the beginning of April 
their numbers were so much increased, that in the heat 
of the day they formed themselves into large swarms, 
