4^6 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE FLORIDAS, &C. 



and large, and strong enough to bear the weight of a man ; 

 some are seven or eight feet high : the whole plant seems to be 

 formed of great oval, compressed leaves, or articulations ; those 

 near the earth continually increase, magnify, and indurate, as 

 the tree advances in years, and at length lose the bright green 

 colour and glossy surface which they promised in their youth, 

 acquiring a ligneous quality, with a whitish scabrous cortex. .„ 

 Every part of the plant is nearly destitute of aculei, or those m 

 fascicles of barbs, which are in such plenty on the common 

 dwarf Indian fig. The cochineal insects were feeding on the 

 leaves. The female of this insect is very large and fleshy, 

 covered with a fine white silk or cottony web, which always 

 feels moist or dewy, and seems designed by nature to protect 

 them from the violent heat of the sun. The males are very 

 small in comparison to the females, and are very few in number; 

 each has two oblong pellucid wings. The large polypetalous 

 flowers of the Cactus are produced on the edges of the last 

 year's leaves, are of a splendid yellow colour, and are succeeded 

 by very large pear-shaped fruit, of a dark livid purple when 

 ripe: its pulp is charged with a juice of a fine transparent 

 crimson colour, and has a cool pleasant taste, somewhat like 

 that of a pomegranate." 



Within the last fifty years, cultivation has widely altered the 

 face of the country; throughout the United States the hand 

 of man has been busy, the "eternal" forests have yielded, 

 throughout extensive tracts, to the flame and axe ; but still 

 North America is a country of great and increasing interest to 

 the naturalist. The botanist may still delight his eye with 

 surveying forests of Magnolia, acres of Yucca gloriosa, and 

 thousands of acres of RJiododendra, Azalice, and Kalmies, 

 presenting an uninterrupted sheet of bloom far as the eye can 

 reach, in every direction. The giant alligator still abounds in 

 that " father of waters," the Mississippi, and may be frequently 

 seen basking on its surface like a floating log, although a 

 thousand steam-boats are working on its waves. It was but 

 the other day one of these huge reptiles entered the log-cabin 

 of a *' squatter," devoured five children and their mother, 

 while the father hardly escaped with life through the window 

 of the cabin. 



It is to the entomologist that the Southern States of America 

 oflfer the greatest attraction; from one peep at Abbott's 



