170 HISTORY OF 



from their infancy been used to their depreda- 

 tions, find them much less inconvenient than 

 those who are newly arrived from Europe ; they 

 sleep in their cottages covered all over with thou- 

 sands of the gnat kind upon their bodies, and yet 

 do not seem to have their slumbers interrupted 

 by their cruel devourers. If a candle happens to 

 be lighted in one of those places, a cloud of in- 

 sects at once light upon the flame, and extinguish 

 it ; they are therefore obliged to keep their can- 

 dles in glass lanterns a miserable expedient to 

 prevent an unceasing calamity ! 



PART V. 



HISTORY OF THE ZOOPHYTES. 



CHAPTER I. 



OF ZOOPHYTES IN GENERAL^ 



WE now come to the last link in the chain of ani- 

 mated nature ; to a class of beings so confined in 

 their powers, and so defective in their formation, 

 that some historians have been at a loss whether 

 to consider them as a superior rank of vegetables, 

 or the humblest order of the animated tribe. In 

 order therefore to give them a denomination agree- 

 able to their existence, they have been called Zoo- 



