They
were more confirmed in this opinion, as some amongst them, whose
judgments were distorted by fears, declared the comet had at
times before their eyes assumed the appearance of a fiery sword
threatening the sinful city. It was also noted in the spring of
this year that birds and wild fowls had left their accustomed
places, and few swallows were seen. But in the previous summer
there had been "such a multitude of flies that they lined the
insides of houses; and if any threads of strings did hang down in
any place, they were presently thick-set with flies like ropes of
onions; and swarms of ants covered the highways that you might
have taken up a handful at a time, both winged and creeping ants;
and such a multitude of croaking frogs in ditches that you might
have heard them before you saw them," as is set down by one
William Boghurst, apothecary at the White Hart in St. Giles-in-
the-Fields, who wrote a learned "Treatis on the Plague" in 1666,
he being the only man who up to that time had done so from
experience and observation. [This quaint and curious production,
which has never been printed, and which furnishes the following
pages with some strange details, is preserved in the Sloane
Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum.] And from such
signs, as likewise from knowledge that the pestilence daily
increased, all felt a season of bitter tribulation was at hand.
According to "Some Observations of the Plague," written by Dr.
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