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Alleghany mountains*, M. Michaux, informs us that the wild turkey of Kentucky sometimes weighs even 40 pounds, an enormous weight for a bird which flies so rapidly, especially when pursued. When the English, in 1584, landed in Virginia, turkies had for fifty years been introduced into Spain, Italy, and England †. This bird did not then pass from the United States into Europe, as has been falsely maintained by many naturalists.

The Pintades (numida meleagris) designated so happily by the ancients under the name of aves guttata, are very rare in Mexico, while they have grown wild in the Island of Cuba. As to the musk-duck (anas moschata) called by the Germans, Turkish duck, which has become so common in our poultry-yards, Europe is indebted for it also to the New Continent. We found it wild on the banks of the river Madelena, where the male grows to a prodigious size. The ancient Mexicans had tame ducks, which they annually plucked, as the feathers were an important object of commerce. These ducks appear to have been Crossed with the species introduced into Europe. The goose is the only one of the birds of our poultry-yards which is no where to be found in the Spanish Colonies of the New Continent.

* Voyage de Michaux, p. 190.
Beckmann, 1. c. T. iii. p. 238-270.

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The cultivation of the mulberry, and the rearing of silk worms, were introduced by the care of Cortez, a few years after the siege of Tenochtitlan. There is a mulberry tree on the ridge of the Cordilleras peculiar to the equinoctial regions, the morus acuminata, Bonpl. which we found wild in the kingdom of Quito, near the villages of Piso and Puembo. The leaf of this mulberry is not so hard as that of the red mulberry, (M. rubra) of the United States, and the silk worms eat it like that of

the white mulberry of China. This last tree, which according to Olivier de Serres, was only planted in France, in the reign of Charles the eighth, about the year 1494, was already very common in Mexico, about the middle of the 16th century. A considerable quantity of silk was then produced in the Intendancy of la Puebla, in the environs of Panuco *, and in the Province of Oaxaca, where several villages of the Misteca, still bear the names of Tepexe de la Seda, (Silk) and San Francisco de la Seda. The policy of the Council of the Indies, constantly unfavourable to the manufactures of Mexico, on the one hand, and on the other, the most active commerce with China, and the interest which the Philippine Company have in selling the Asiatic silks to the Mexicans, seem to be the principal causes of the gradual annihilation of this

*La Florida del Inca (Madrid, 1723) T. i. p. 258.

branch of colonial industry. A few years ago, an individual at Queretaro, proposed to the government the making of large plantations of mulberry, in one of the finest vallies of Mexico, la Canada of the baths of San Pedro, inhabited by more than three thousand Indians. The rearing of silk worms requires less care than cochineal, and the character of the natives renders them extremely fit for every sort of labour, which requires great patience and minute care. The Canada, which is twoleagues from Queretaro, towards the north east constantly enjoys a mild and temperate climate. The Lavrus persea is only now cultivated there, and the viceroys who dread to infringe on what is called in the colonies, the rights of the Mother Country, have been unwilling to admit the substitution of mulberries to the present species of cultivation.

New Spain has several species of indigenous caterpillars, which spin silk in the manner of the Bombyx Mori of China, but which have never yet been sufficiently examined by entomologists. The silk of the Misteca derived from these animals, was an object of commerce, even in the time of Montezuma. Handkerchiefs are still manufactured in the intendancy of Oaxaca of this Mexican silk. We purchased some on the road to Acapulco, at Chilpanzingo.

The stuff feels rough, like certain Indian silks, which are equally the produce of very different silk-worms, from that of the mulberry.

In the provinces of Mechoacan, and in the mountains of Santa Rosa, to the north of Guanaxuato bags of an oval form, resembling the nests of the Orialus, (Troupiales) and the Caciques, are seen suspended from different kinds of trees, and especially the branches of the Arbutus Madroño. These bags called capullos de madroño, are the work of a great number of caterpillars of the Bombyx de Fabricius kind, who live in society, and spin together. Each capullo is from 18 to 20 centimetres in length, by 21 in breadth*. They are of a brilliant whiteness, and formed in beds, which may be separated from one another. The interior beds are the most slender, and of an extraordinary transparency.-The matter of which these large bags is formed resembles Chinese paper:

the tissue is so dense that the threads which are pasted transversely over one another, are scarcely perceiveable. I found a great number of these capullos de madroño, on descending the coffre de Perote towards las Vigas at an absolute height of 3200 metrest. It is possible

* From 7 to 74 inhces, by 33 inches. Trans.
† 10,498 feet English. Trans.

to write on the interior beds without making them undergo any sort of preparation.

It

is a true natural paper, of which the antient Mexicans knew the use, pasting together several beds, for the formation of a white and glossy pasteboard. We brought by the courier, living caterpillars of the bombyx madroño from Santa Rosa to Mexico: they are of an olive colour, approaching to black and covered with hair, and their length is from 25 to 28 millimetres*. We did not see their metamorphosis, but we perceived that notwithstanding the beauty and extraordinary lustre of this madroño silk, it would be almost impossible to employ it to any advantage on account of the difficulty which would be experienced in winding it. several caterpillars work together, their threads cross and entangle with one another. I have thought proper to enter into these details, because persons more zealous than well informed, have lately turned the attention of the French Government towards the indigenou ilk of Mexico.

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Wax is an object of the highest importance to a country where much magnificence prevails in the exterior worship. An enormous quantity is consumed in the festivals of the church, both in the capital, and in the chapels of the smallest

*From .98 of an inch, to 1.1 inch. Trans.

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