THE GNAT AND TIPL'LA. 401 



with oil, and who have from their infancy been used to their de- 

 predations, find them much less inconvenient than those who 

 are newly arrived from Europe ; they sleep in their cottages 

 covered all over with thousands of the gnat kind upon their 

 bodies, and yet do not seem to have their slumbers disturbed by 

 their cruel devourers. If a candle happens to be lighted in one 

 of those places, a cloud of insects at once light upon the flame, 

 and extinguish it : they are therefore obliged to keep their 

 candles in glass lanterns ; a miserable expedient to prevent an 

 unceasing calamity ! 



less frequently, in the intestines. Here they hang in clusters of from half 

 a dozen to more than a hundred, adhering to the inner membrane of the 

 stomach, by means of two small hooks or tentaculae at their heads, whose 

 points turn outward. When they are remoTed from the stomach, they will 

 attach themselves to any loose membrane, even to the skin of the hand. To 

 effect this they draw back their hooks, which have a joint near their base, 

 almost entirely within their skin, till the two points come close to each 

 other ; then, keeping them parallel, they pierce through the membrane, and 

 iiumediately afterwards expand in a lateral direction ; and by these means 

 they become perfectly fixed. 



