NO EVIL WITHOUT ITS ADVANTAGE. 93

Their size is hardly larger than that of our large
Kuropean ants, yet they are of such a consti-
tution that neither fresh nor salt water, nor vine-
gar, nor any other strong liquors, with which I
often covered the floor of my chamber, were able
to destroy them, so that every method I took to
extirpate the breed proved ineffectual.” No evil is
without a counterbalancing advantage. Thus, our
enthusiast found a consolation for all his ‘swellings
and acute pains” occasioned by the hostilities of the
vag-vagues, since, thanks to the wakefulness they
induced, he had opportunities for making a repeti-
tion of experiments which he frankly acknowledges
“might otherwise have been performed but very
seldom,”

“ My room,” he says, “ was full of pails of sea-
water, in which I constantly kept live fish, which
in the night-time emitted alight not unlike that of
phosphorus. The mugs full of shells, and even
the fish that lay dead on the table, gave the same
light. All these illuminations put together, and
reflected upon different parts of the room, made it
appear as if 1t were on fire; and I must own that
I was of that opinion the first time I saw the
strange phenomenon. The vag-vagues, by awaken-
ing me suddenly out of my sleep, renewed my
fright much oftener than I could have wished in
the beginning; but my apprehension gradually