Now it is somewhat singular, that while our ingenious author makes such learned inquiries to account for the motives that induced God thus to visit the Egyptians, he does not venture to assign motives for similar calamities which befel other nations and countries; although his researches on the subject are so curious and interesting, that they deserve insertion. The following is the account given by Beauplam of the destructive inroad of these devourers in the Ukraine:--"Next to the flies, let us talk of the grasshoppers or locusts, which here are so numerous, that they put one in mind of the scourge of God sent upon Egypt when he punished Pharaoh. These creatures do not only come in legions, but in whole clouds, five or six leagues in length, and two or three in breadth, eating up all sorts of grain or grass, so that wheresoever they come, in less than two hours they crop all they can find, which causes great scarcity of provisions. It is not easy to express their numbers, for all the air is full and darkened; and I cannot better represent their flight to you, than by comparing it to the flakes of snow driven by the wind in cloudy weather; and when they alight to feed, the plains are all covered. They make a murmuring noise as they eat, and in less than two hours they devour all close to the ground; then rising, they suffer themselves to be carried away by the wind. When they fly, though the sun shines never so bright, the air is no lighter than when most clouded. In June 1646, having stayed in a new town called Novogorod, I was astonished to see so vast a multitude. They were hatched here last spring; and being as yet scarcely able to fly, the ground was all covered, and the air so full of them, that I could not eat in my chamber without a candle, all the houses being full of them, even the stables, barns, chambers, garrets, cellars, &c. I have seen at night, when they sit to rest themselves, that the roads have been four inches thick of them, one upon another. By the wheels of the carts and the feet of our horses bruising these creatures, there came from them such a stink, as not only offended the nose but the brain. I was not able to endure the stench, but was forced to wash my nose with vinegar, and to hold a handkerchief dipped in it to my nostrils perpetually. These vermin increase and multiply thus: they generate in October, and with their tails make a hole in the ground, and having laid three hundred eggs in it, and covered them with their feet, die; for they never live above six months and a half. And though the rains should come, they would not destroy the eggs; nor does the frost, never so sharp, hurt them. But they continue to the spring, which is about mid-April; when the sun warming the earth, they are hatched, and leap about, being six weeks old before they can fly; when stronger, and able to fly, they go wherever the wind carries them. If it should happen that a north-east wind prevails, it carries them all into