12 LETTERS ON ENTOMOLOGY. 
same cause, which destroyed not less than 800,000 
persons in the kingdom of Masinissa alone, and 
many more near the shore. 
A historian quoted by Mouffet, relates that 
in the year 591, an infinite number of locusts, 
unusually large, ravaged part of Italy, and being 
at length cast into the sea, their stench caused a 
pestilence which carried off near a million of 
men and beasts. The same occurrence is said to 
have taken place in the Venetian territory, though 
to a smaller extent. They have even reached as 
far as France, and in 1748 they were observed 
in England, with great alarm, but providentially 
they soon perished. These were evidently the 
stragglers from the vast swarms which in the 
year before ravaged Wallachia, Moldavia, Tran- 
sylvania, Hungary, and Poland. One of these 
swarms which entered Transylvania, in August, 
was several hundred fathoms in width (at Vienna 
the breadth of one was three miles), and extended 
so far, as to be four hours in passing over the 
Red Tower; and such was its density that it 
darkened the air to so great a degree, that when 
they flew low, a person could not see another at 
twenty paces ! Can we wonder at their being 
objects of terror, when the very account of them 
is enough to make one shudder? A gentleman 
■£ 
