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 valleys of Mexico la Cañada 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 Cañada, which is two leagues 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, aré scarcely perceivable. 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 metres. † It is possible

* From 7 to 74 inches, by 82 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. As 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 in. formed, have lately turned the attention of the French Government towards the indigenous silk of Mexico.

War is an object of the highest importance to a county 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.

Current price of wore upon the Xpot. England Fortuny lacidlə

CHAP. X.

KINGDOM OF NEW SPAIN.

61

Indian villages. The hives are extremely
productive in the peninsula of Yucatan, es-
pecially in the environs of the port of Cam-
peachy, which, in 1803, exported 582 arrobas
of wax, for Vera Cruz. They reckon from
6 to 7 hundred hives in one colmenar.
This wax of Yucatan is the produce of
a bee peculiar to the New Continent, which
is said to be destitute of a sting, no doubt
because the sting is weak and not very sen-
sible. From this circumstance in the Spa-
nish colonies the name of little angels (an-
gelitos), has been given to the bees described
by M. M. Illiger, Jurine, and Latreille, un-
der the name of Melipone and Trigone. I
know not if the bee of Campeachy differs
from the Melipona Fasciata, found by M. Bon-
pland on the eastern slope of the Cordille-
ras. It is certain that the wax of the
American bees is more difficult to whiten,
than the wax of the domestic bees of Europe.
New Spain draws annually nearly 25,000 ar-
robas of wax from the Havannah, the value
of which amounts to more than 2 millions
of livres Tournois. † A very small part how-

* See the insects collected in the course of our expedi-
tion, and described by M. Latreille in our Recueil d'ob-
servations de Zoologie et d'Anatomie Comparée, t. i.

+ 83,3401. sterling. Trans.

X

ever of this wax of the island of Cuba, is
the produce of the wild Trigones which oc-
cupy the trunks of the Cedrela Odorata;
the greatest part is procured from the bee
of the north of Europe (Apis Mellifica,) the
cultivation of which has been very much
on the increase since 1772. The island of
Cuba exported in 1803, including the contra-
band, 42.670 arrobas of wax. The price
of an arroba then amounted to 20 or 21
piastres; but the mean price in time of peace
is only 15 piastres, or 75 livres Tournois.
In America, the neighbourhood of the sugar
plantations is very prejudicial to the bees.
These insects are so exceedingly greedy of
honey that they drown themselves in the juice
of the cane, which puts them into a state of
inaction and intoxication when they drink it
to excess.

The rearing of the cochineal, (Grana No-
chiztli,) is of great antiquity in New Spain;
and it is probable that it goes beyond the
incursions of the Toltec tribes. In the time of
the dynasty of Aztec kings, the cochineal was
more general than at present.
nopaleries not only in Mixtecapan (la Misteca),
and in the province of Huaxyacac (Oaxaca),
but also in the intendancy of Puebla, in the

* 3 2 6 sterling. Trans.

There were