HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



99 



of that place (h). In the fixteenth century rhey ufed to 

 rear it alfo in Tlafcala, Huexotzinco, and other places, 

 and it was a confiderable article of trade ; but the Indians 

 (who have always been the perfons employed in that bu- 

 finefs), oppreffed by the avaricious tyranny of fome Spa- 

 nifli governors, were forced to abandon that employment 

 which, of its own nature befides, was always very trou- 

 blefome and tedious. The cochineal, at its utmoft 

 growth, in fize and figure refembles a bug. The female 

 is ill proportioned and fluggifli. The eyes, mouth, an- 

 , tennse, and feet, are fo concealed among the wrinkles of 

 its i]<:in, that they cannot be difcovered without the affift- 

 ance of a microfcope : and it is owing to that circum- 

 ftance, that fome Europeans have been fo pofitive in af- 

 firming it to be a kind of feed and not an animal, in op- 

 pofition to the teftimony of the Indians who reared it, 

 and of Hernandez who examined it as a naturalift. 

 The males are not fo numerous, and one ferves for three 

 hundred females: they are likev^/ife fmaller and thinner 

 than the females, but more briilc and a^live. Upon the 

 heads of this infeft are two articulated antennce, in each 

 articulation of which are four fmall bridles regularly dif- 

 pofed. It has fix feet, each confifting of three parts. 

 From the hinder part of the body grow out tv/o hairs, 

 which are tvv^o or three times as large as the whole infedt. 

 The male has two large v;ings, which are wanting in the 

 female. Thefe wings are llrengthened by two mufcles; 

 one external, extending along the circumference of the 



wing : 



ih) Several authors have reckoned that more than ^^,500 bags of cochineal are 

 fent every year from Mizteca to Spain. The trade in that article carried on by 

 the city of Oaxaca, brings in aoOjOOO crowns a-year. Bomare fays, there is a 

 kind of cochineal called Mcjiecan, becaiife it is got in Meteque, in the province of 

 Honduras : but this is a miftake, for it comes from Mifteca, a province farther 

 from Honduras than Rome is from Paris. 



