Vig Károly: Zoological Research in Western Hungary. A history (Szombathely, 2003)

Phylum Arthropode! 93 (CSÁNYI). The same visitation is described in an entry in the BRUCKNER Chronicle: 'On the evening of August 5, there appeared locusts in such great numbers as had never been seen or heard of in living memory... There were many million locusts and the sun was darkened wherever they flew. Wherever they landed on the tilled fields and vineyards, they did great damage.' Sopron, 1685: The locusts tarried in the reeds by Fertő this year, but also did much damage among the vines... the locusts flew into the reeds of the lake and consumed the young reeds as well' (BRUCKNER). JÁNOS CSÁNYI also recorded the occasion: The locusts rose by Fertő, but the people of Ruszt (Rust) drove them off and gathered many mérő [grain measures] of locusts and buried them, but by then they had gnawed all the grass, and indeed great harm was done also to people's grain.' Sopron, August-September 1686: 'In September, many thousand times a thousand locusts arrived... They damaged the second crops by the lake, broke into the vineyards... as well and did great harm' (CSÁNYI). Sopron, August 10, 1687: 'On Sunday evening at 5 o'clock, there flew a great mass of locusts from Harka over Balf Hill into the town. The trees in the outskirts, vineyards and fields were bent to the ground with locusts settled upon them. Within three days, the locusts had vanished' (BRUCKNER). CSÁNYI gave an account of the same incident: 'On the night of August 10, St Lawrence's Day, several million locusts flew in from the direction of the Hungarian Gate, and it looked as if fire had broken out somewhere and the smoke of it was coming. The locusts landed on the little Lövérek meadows beyond the Hungarian Gate and the surrounding fields and bushes. The locusts bent the branches to the ground and the double-sown fields

12 all looked as dark as wasteland, because the locusts were covering them so thickly. Thereupon people marched out with drums and tried to drive the locusts off with the sound, and fired mortars and muskets at them, but they failed to drive them away because it was a cool day. [Then] they flew off towards the woods in the direction of Barom [Warisch, Kleinwarasdorf] and the branches of the bushes were full of them. At noon on the third day [August 13], when the weather had warmed up, they rose of their own accord and flew in the Lövérek direction, towards Bánfalva [Wandorf, Sopronbánfalva], and in part towards Reissinger's mill. There they landed again. On the next day, the flew into the outer vineyards, where they settled on the vines and fruit trees and bent to the ground boughs so thick that two men could not break them. At this, people began to bang with hoes and shout loud, whereupon the swarm of locusts rose and flew towards Somfalu [Schadendorf, Schattendorf]. There too the inhabitants came out and drove them towards other villages, where people again did the same, until the locusts eventually left the country. As for the locusts, those that settled among us in large numbers and bred near Zarhalmen [Szárhalom] and at Stüblakker caused us great damage... Only misery could be seen in the neighbouring fields, which the locusts had destroyed. Initially, they spread quite 12 With a mixture of wheat and rye.