The "Amilbeds" and the Pummelos. 41 



that in South America whole forests of orange trees 

 have been created through the sole agency of parrots. 



Considering the numerous varieties of pummelo there 

 are in India at the present day the white, the pink, 

 the red pulped; the oblate, the globose, the ovoid, the 

 pyriform ; the very large, the middling, aud the small ; 

 the sweet, the sour, and the acrid ; the thick-skinned 

 and the thin-skinned ; those with rounded, emarginate 

 leaves, and those with long lanceolate leaves ; those 

 with lemon-coloured fruit, and those with a blush of 

 red ; finally, the tomentose, the semi-tomentose, and 

 the glabrous varieties one might, perhaps, infer from 

 this richness of varieties that there must be in India 

 some centre of wild pummelo, from which all these have 

 originated. Yet nothing appears clearer than that the 

 pummelo proper is of recent introduction in India, by 

 way of Batavia and Calcutta, and perhaps also southern 

 India. 



From all that can be gathered, it appears likely that 

 the pummelo was evolved, or at all events got its modern 

 characters fixed, in the Malayan archipelago. It should 

 not, however, be supposed that India was incapable of 

 evolving a pummelo of its own. Three hundred years 

 ago, the Emperor Baber attempted to describe the 

 amilbed. This appears to have originated in a yellow- 

 skinned variety of some sour orange, not improbably a 

 close ally of the C. aurantium sinense, Gall. It has a 

 closely fitting skin, an orange or white pulp, and a leaf 

 with the characters of the Malta orange leaf. Three hun- 

 dred years ago, it appears to have been uncommon in 

 India, and even now it is cultivated more as a curiosity 

 than for commercial purposes. Being sour, and there 

 being many other sour citrus of a more convenient 

 size, it has never become widely disseminated. Never- 

 theless, pi. 67 shows an amilbed which is larger than 



