538 



human head, which contains the almonds. The 

 weight of these fruits, he says, is so enormous, 

 that the savages dare not enter the forests with- 

 out covering their heads and shoulders with a 

 buckler of very hard wood. These bucklers 

 are unknown to the natives of Esmeralda, but 

 they also told us of the dangers incurred when 

 the fruit ripens, and falls from a height of fifty 

 or sixty feet. The triangular seeds of the juvia 

 are sold in Portugal and England under the 

 vague name of chesnuts (castanas) or nuts of 

 Brazil and the Amazon ; and it was long be- 

 lieved, that, like the fruit of the pekea, they 

 grew on separate stalks. They have furnished 

 an article of a tolerably brisk trade for a cen- 



crasso, exterius striato et tuberoso, coloris fusci et pene 

 nigri. Dividitur interius certis septis in sex reluti regiones, 

 in quarum singulis concluduntur octodecim et interdura 

 duodecim nuces arete inter se conjunctae : quae singulae ite- 

 rum ligneo et satis duro cortice tectae sunt et varise formae 

 pleraeque tamen triangulares una parte convexiore, cum tribus 

 veluti suturis, valde rngosae et asperce, minus tamen quam 

 exterior cortex, tres uneias longae et sesquiunciam latae, 

 coloris rossi, et interdum cinerei aut fusci : his continetur 

 oblongus nucleus, totas implens instar amygdali, rubicunda 

 membrana tectus, carne candidissima, solida et nonnihil 

 oleosa ; sapore magis videtur accedere ad avellanas quam 

 amygdala, horum tamen usum in omnibus egregie potest 

 suplere, etiam ad tragemata facienda, uti a nostris (Belgis) 

 fuit observatum. Barbari dicunt, si Venerem ambis, comede 

 totocke fructum." {Laet, p. 632. Compare our Plantes equi- 

 noxiahs, torn, p, 122, PI. 36.) 



