Before my excurfion to Buzot, fome peasants of Las Aguas had spread themfelves on the adjacent mountains, where they collected more than four arrobas, or one hundred weight of grana, which they had fold in Alicant for fifteen reals, or about three fhillings a pound.

Befide the grana kermes, I observed on the cofcoja many large red excrefcences; and of these, two fpecies are diftinguished, the one formed on the leaf, the other on the stems of the amentaceous flowers. The former appears in the middle of the leaf, on both its furfaces, and is at first of a green colour; but as it fwells, it becomes of a bright red, and occupies the whole leaf, with this exception, that in fome a narrow margin of the leaf remains. The latter are longer than the former, and where they are found, the stems of the amenta are confiderably larger than the reft; yet the florets, which appear on the furface of thefe excrefcences, are not to appearance affected by them. These morbid tumors have many perforations, communicating with little cells, which contain each a fmall white grub. The

cell

cell is formed by a strong membrane, but the fubftance of the tumor is fpongy. In the excrefcence on the leaf I could not discover any nidus, although I have no doubt that thefe, like the former, were occafioned by the ichneumon fly, and that each of them contained an egg.

I might here proceed to give at large the natural history of the locust; but this task having been fo well performed by the judicious Bowles, I fhall be exceedingly brief upon the fubject. Thefe voracious infects commit the greatest devastations in the fouth of Spain; and this proceeds, not merely from the warmth of the climate, but from want of cultivation, because the females never depofit their eggs in arable land, but always in the deferts. For this reafon Galicia, where agriculture prevails, is little infefted with the locuft.

Adanson, in his voyage to Senegal, has given us a ftriking picture of the defolation occafioned by a cloud of locufts which darkened the fun, and extending many leagues, in the space of a few hours laid wafte the country, devouring fruits, and leaves, and herbage, the bark of trees, and

even the dried reeds with which the huts were thatched.

Of the locuft tribe, Linnæus reckons twenty fpecies. Those I have observed in Spain are the Grylli Italici, diftinguished by the redness of their wings. Their jaw bones are strong, and dented like a faw. Their head bears a striking resemblance to that of the horse, and this fimilitude has been remarked in the whole genus. The found of their wings is faid to be like the noise of diftant chariots.

They are not always confidered as a plague, being commonly feen only in the forests; but when the season has been peculiarly favourable for their propagation; when these rapacious infects darken the air; when their affembled hofts fall upon the rich pastures; when they rob the vines and olives of their foliage; when they devour the corn; when they enter the houses, and lay wafte every thing before them, they are then univerfally regarded as the fcourge of heaven. As fuch they were confidered, when, for four fucceffive years, from 1754 to 1757, they ravaged all the fouthern

fouthern provinces of Spain and Portugal.

The description of this gloomy fcene, at least of one fimilar to it, which a prophet has given us, is scarcely to be equalled for beauty and poetic fire. He calls upon the people to lament, because a nation, strong and without number, whofe teeth are the teeth of lions, had fuddenly invaded them. Then, turning to the heralds,

"Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and found an alarm in my holy mountain. Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand: a day of darkness, and of gloominefs; a day of clouds and thick darkness; as the morning spread upon the mountains, a people great and strong: there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations. A fire devoureth before them, and behind them a flame burneth. The land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a defolate wilderness, yea, and nothing fhall escape them. The appearance of them is as the appearance of horfes; and as horsemen, so shall they run.

Like the noise of chariots on the tops of: mountains shall they leap; like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the ftubble; as a strong nation fet in battle array. Before their face the people fhall be much pained: all faces fhall gather blackness. They shall run like mighty men; they shall climb the wall like men of war; and they shall march every one on his way, and they shall not break their ranks; neither shall one thrust another; they fhall walk every one in his path, and when they fall upon the sword they fhall not be wounded. They shall run to and fro in the city; they shall run upon the wall; they shall climb up upon the houses; they fhall enter in at the windows like a thief. The earth fhall quake before them; the heavens fhall tremble; the fun and the moon fhall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining. And the Lord fhall utter his voice before his for his army, camp is very great; for he is ftrong that executeth his word; for the day of the Lord is great and very terrible, and who can abide it."

JOEL, cap. ii. I-II.

VOL. III.

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