THE BOOK-WORM. 81 



highest, and most inferior orders of creation, from 

 man through beasts and insects to the very slug, 

 which eats the paper from our books and our 

 walls, to feed upon the sugar in the starch and 

 gluten of the paste which cements it ; that little 

 silvery creature, the book-worm, (lepisma saccha- 

 rina*,} detects it in the same substances, and 

 mines his circular perforations through the bind- 

 ings of our volumes to obtain it ; and the weevil, 

 that so injuriously perforates my Hbeechen table, 

 is upon a similar pursuit. Nature has appointed 

 for the nourishment of all mammiferous creatures a 

 milky fluid as an intermediate substance between 

 the animal and the vegetable kingdoms : this is 

 replete with saccharine matter, and almost the 

 only animal product known to contain it f ; and 

 we must consequently conclude that it was placed 

 there to furnish their principal support. Though 

 this fluid in separate animals is supplied with dif- 

 ferent portions of this substance, and one vegetable 

 affords a sensible evidence of its existence by its 

 juices or its fruit, and another none whatsoever, 

 yet that is no proof of a deficiency for some things 

 of the nutritive principle, as the organs of one 

 creature can and do convert a matter to subsist- 



f * This little creature has so great a delight in sweets, even in an 

 uncombined state, as its name intimates, that it is frequently found 

 inhabiting damp closets and such places, where crumbs of sugar 

 may have been scattered. 



f Wool contains this matter, and it is the cause probably why 

 all vestments formed of it are so preyed upon by various little 

 moths, and other creatures. 



G 



