( 282 ) 



Haec nemora indigense Fauni, nymphaeque tenebant 



Genfque virum truncis, et duro robore nata* : 



Queis neque mos, neque cultus erat ; nee jungere tauros, 



Aut componere opes norant, ant parcere parto ; 



Sed rami, atque afper viftu venatus alebat. 



If indeed they lived near a coaft, like the 

 Zealanders defcribed by Pliny, they obtained 

 a livelihood by fifhing. But with the favages 

 of the coaft we have nothing to do. Our 

 attention is only engaged by the favage of the 

 woods. 



While man continued thus an inmate of 

 the foreft, it is poffible he might have fagacity 

 to build himfelf a hut of boughs, which he 

 might cover with clods : and yet it is more 

 probable, that while he continued the mere 

 child of nature, he was contented with the 

 fimple fhelter, which Virgil above fuppofes his 

 common mother furnifhed; the imbowering 

 thicket, or the hollow trunk -, as fummer, or 

 winter led him to prefer an open, or a clofer 

 cover. Strabo fpeaks of certain Afiatics, even 

 fo late in the hiftory of mankind, as the times 

 of Pompey the great, who harboured, like 



* jE?cr, and living in trunks of trees, as Ruaeus well explains 

 it ; not produced from them. 



birds, 



