200 THE SAPUCAYA NUTS OF COMMERCE. 



cups are not so regularly shaped, and its nuts not so good ; for, according- 

 to the natives, those who eat them in excess are apt to lose their hair. A 

 rude woodcut accompanies the description, from which it appears that the 

 cups of the first Zabucajo were nearly spherical or roundish-oblong. 



This statement was echoed by George Marcgraaf de Liebstad, whose 

 papers were edited by De Laet of Antwerp. Marcgraaf, using Piso's woodcut, 

 speaks of the tree as being called Iapucaya ; but it is doubtful whether 

 he has not confounded some other sort with that of Piso ; for he says that 

 the cup contains four cells, in each of which is one chesnut as big as a 

 plum, a description that has no application to Sapucaya, 



In 1775, the French botanist Aublet, in his ' Histoire des Plantes de la 

 Guiane Francaise,' describes and figures a tree called in Guiana Canari 

 Macaque, which he also referred to the genus Lecythis of Linnaeus, naming 

 it Lecythis grandiflora. This tree was called in his day Marmite de Singe, 

 or Monkey-pot, for a reason to which we shall advert presently. The figure 

 given by him of the cup of this species, and which we reproduce, repre- 

 sents a vessel tapering to the base, and described as being about seven 

 inches high, two and a half inches across the opening into the interior, an 



