TOPOGRAPHY. 



347 



has been so forcibly pointed out by the cabinet of Madrid, 

 namely, the yellow bark, there named calisaya, which was 

 thought to be peculiar to the province of la Paz, and which, 

 having been already brought to Lima by Bezares, has been 

 found to be of the same species, and to possess the same a6live 

 qualities. Who could have imagined that the cinchona grew 

 in Guamalies, and of the two most esteemed kinds, the dusky 



menon, unfortunately not the only one which has been subje6led to that lot. The 

 degree of interest occasioned by so extraordinary a species, obliges us to relate what 

 has been observed respedting the sustillo, which, it is to be lamented, is sought after 

 by the Indians as a most delicious food. This caterpillar is bred in the pacae, a tree 

 well known in Peru, and named by the Peruvian Flora, MS. mimosa inga. In pro- 

 portion to tlie vigour and majestic growth of this tree, is the number of the inse61s 

 it nourishes, and which are of the kind and size of the bombyx, or silk-worm. When 

 they are completely satiated, they unite at the body of the tree, seeking the part 

 which is best adapted to the extension they have to take. They there form, with 

 the greatest symmetry and regularity, a web which is larger or smaller, according 

 to the number of the operants ; and more or less pliant, according to the quality of 

 the leaf by which they have been nourished, the whole of them remaining beneath. 

 This envelope, on which they bestow such a texture, consistency, and lustre, that 

 it cannot be decomposed by any pra£licable expedient, having been finished, they 

 all of them unite, and ranging themselves in vertical and even files, form in the 

 centre a perfedt square. Being thus disposed, each of them makes its cocoon, 

 or pod, of a coarse and short silk, in which it is transformed, from the grub 

 into the chrysalis, and from the chrysalis into the popilio, or moth. In proportion 

 as they afterward quit their confinement, to take wing, they detach, wherever it is 

 most convenient to them, their envelope, or web, a portion of which renaains sus- 

 pended to the trunk of the tree, where it waves to and fro like a streamer, and which 

 becomes more or less white, according to the air and humidity the season and 

 situation admit. A complete nest has already been transmitted to his Catholic 

 Majesty ; and, by the hands of his naturalist, Don Antonio Pineda, a piece of this 

 natural silk paper, measuring a yard and a half, of aii elliptical shape, which is pe- 

 culiar to^all of them. 



Y y 3 red 



