172 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 
during the expedition, but no allusion is made to the various insect pests 
which annoy man and horses, and with which the Spaniards must have 
becotne acquainted here for the first time. That they were accustomed to 
the various lice, the fleas, and the bed-bugs there can be no doubt; in fact, 
some of these parasites were perhaps introduced then into North America 
by this expedition. But there is no mention of Sand-flies (Ceratopogori}, 
Red Bugs (Leptus irritans), and Mosquitoes. The absence of any refer- 
ence to mosquitoes appears to be especially strange, since these insects were 
undoubtedly just as numerous then in our swamps as they are now, and 
since the Spaniards in their camps must have occasionally suffered terribly 
from their attacks. The absence of any reference to Horse-flies is also 
remarkable, since the horses were the most valuable property of the Span- 
ish invaders. To them alone they owed their superiority in the constant 
fights with the Indians, and the death of a horse, either in battle or by 
drowning, is always carefully recorded by Garcilasso. I think, however, 
that at that time the various species of Tabanus were by far less numer- 
ous in specimens than they are at present. The Indians had no domestic 
animals ; there were no buffaloes in the southeastern part of the country, 
and deer and other large warm-blooded animals weie probably then not 
much more numerous than they were up to a comparatively recent period. 
The introduction of domestic animals by the Europeans is no doubt the 
cause of the increase in the number of Horse-flies, which in some portions 
of the South are now a rather serious drawback to successful agriculture. 
The only passage having any connection with entomology occurs toward 
the end of Garcilasso's work, when the situation is as follows : In 1543 the 
remnants of De Soto's expedition sail down the Mississippi river to its 
mouth, thence westward along the coast. After infinite hardship they 
reach the mouth of a river, which proved to be the Panuco river, on the 
coast of Mexico, and ascending the same they come to the capital of that 
section, where they meet their countrymen, the City of Mexico being only 
60 leagues distant. Garcilasso now says as follows, the translation being 
verbatim:* "The Spaniards praised God for this luck, and remained 10 
or 12 days at Panuco. But since the majority found out that the inhab- 
itants subsisted only on such things as the land produced; that several 
occupied themselves only with planting Spanish mulberry trees in the 
hope of having silk; that those which were best off raised only a few 
horses to sell them to the foreign merchants ; that all of them were en- 
tirely poor, poorly housed, and the land miserable," then they regretted 
having left the rich Florida, etc. 
This passage, which has evidently slipped into Garcilasso's book by mere 
accident, does not convey any new information, for we know from other 
independent sources that silk industry was introduced into Mexico at a very 
early date, when Cortez was still viceroy of that country; but I fail to 
find in several histories of silk-culture which I consulted any reference to 
*I translate from the French edition, Leyden, 1731, p. 544- 
