STUDY Vil. IJ 



many hundred leagues, the rock hardly emerging 

 out of the water which he left in the morning, / 

 pofleffcs means of afcertaining his Longitude, hi- / 

 therto unknown to our mod ingenious Aflro- 

 nomers. ^ 



Man, it has been faid, owes his intelligence to 

 his hands ; but the monkey, the declared enemy 

 of all induftry, has hands too. The lluggard, or 

 floth, likewife has hands, and they ought to have 

 fuggeftcd to him the propriety of fortifying him- 

 felf: of digging, at leaft, a retreat in the earth, 

 for himfelf and for his pofterity, expofed as they 

 are to a thoufmd accidents, by the flownefs of 

 their progreffion. There are animals in abundance 

 furniQied with tools much more ingenious than 

 hands, and which are not, for all that, a whit more 

 intelligent. The gnat is furnilhed with a probof- 

 cis, which is at once an awl proper for piercing 

 the flefli of animals, and a pump by which it fucks 

 out their blood. This probofcis contains, belldes, 

 a long faw, with which it opens the fmall blood- 

 veflels at the bottom of the wound which it has 

 made. He is likewife provided with wings, to 

 tranfport him wherever he pleafes ; a corllet of 

 eyes ftudded round his little head, to fee all the 

 objeds about him in every dircdion ; talons fo 

 fliarp, that he can walk on polilLed glafs in a per- 

 pendicular diredion ; feet fupplied with brulhes 



for 



