272 G A N G E T I C H I N D O O S T A N. 



taken, being extremely wild. It is efteemed as fine eating as 

 the lall:. 



I SH.ALL quit the fubjecfl of this part of natural hiflory with 

 a few miicellaneous remarks. The antients had very extrava- 

 gant notions of the animals of this country, yet (amidft the 

 wild and exaggerated accounts) have preferved fome indifpu- 

 table truths ; among them we find, in Pliny., lib. vii. c. 2, con- 

 firmed to us, that the Ourang Outangt or great ape, was found 

 in the forefls of Hindoo/Ian^ and formed what the Roman natu- 

 ralift fuppofed to have been a people called Cboromanda. The 

 fame fpecies, under the notion of Satyrs j was met with among 

 the C a riadu/i ; and the little kind, the famous Pygm<^i Spitha- 

 mt^ii the fame with thofe celebrated by Homer for their an- 

 nual wars with the cranes, are no other than the little men I 

 mentioned to be found in the forefts of the Carnatic. 



Ijjsects. 'The infecfts of Hindoojlan baffle all numeration. A few of 



the moft ufeful only may be mentioned. At the head of them 



Silk-worm. I ^2\\ here only fpeak of the filk-worms. I begin with the 

 Phaicena mori, and even at this outfet declare it to have been 

 very long indeed before the infe6t itfelf found its way into In- 

 dia. The Bengalefe, and the people of the adjacent yljfam, had 

 long a commercial intercourfe, by which the laft received fait, 

 and the former a vafl quantity of filk. This, if we may credit 

 Raynal, grew fpontaneoufly on the trees, as Pliny* fays it did 

 among the antient Seres, Lanicio Sylvanim nobiles. The Hin- 

 doos, happy in their manufadlures fuited to their climate, wifely 

 left to their neighbors, the Perfians, the cultivation of the 

 mulberry-trees, and its infetft inhabitant. For the fake of 



* Lib. vi. c. 17. 



variety 



