more and more covered as it gets older, its down thickens, and the insect resembles a small white flake, at the period which precedes the conjunction of the two sexes.

This fact

It is sometimes observed in the nopaleries of Oaxaca, that the winged male of the fine cochineal couples with the female of the wild cochineal. This fact has been cited as an evident proof of the identity of the species; but we commonly see in Europe coccinelles couple together, essentially different in their form, shape, and colour. When two species of insects are in the same vicinity, we ought not to be astonished at their coupling together.

Are the fine cochineal, and the plant on which it feeds, both to be found in a wild state in Mexico? M. Thiery thought himself warranted in answering this question in the negative. This naturalist appears to admit, that the insect and the nopal of the plantations of Oaxaca, have been insensibly modified in their form by means of long culture. This supposition, however, appears to me equally gratuitous with that which would pronounce grain, maize, and the banana, to be degenerated plants, or, to take an example from the animal reign, the llama, which is not known in a wild state, to be a variety of the Peruvian sheep, (vicuña) of the Upper Andes. The coccus cacti has an infinite number of enemies among

the insects and birds. Wherever the cotton cochineal propagates of itself, it is not to be found in any abundance, from which we may easily conceive that the mealy cochineal must have been still more rare in its native country, because it is much more delicate, and not being covered with down, is more sensible to the cold and humidity of the air. In discussing the question, whether the fine cochineal would propagate without the care of man, the subdelegate of the province of Oaxaca, Ruiz de Montaya, cites a very remark able fact in his memoir, "that at seven "leagues distance from the village of Nexapa, "there is a place, where, favoured by parti"cular circumstances, the most beautiful grana fina is to be found, on very high and very prickly wild nopals, without any pains having ever been bestowed in cleaning the

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plants, or in renewing the offspring of the "cochineal." Besides, we are not to be astonished that even in a country where this animal is indigenous, it should seldom be found in a wild state, from the time that it began to be in request among the inhabitants, and to be reared in nopaleries. It is probable that the Toultecs, before undertaking so troublesome a species of cultivation, collected the fine cochineal on the nopals,

*Gazeta de Literatura de Mexico, 1794, p. 228.

which grew spontaneously on the sides of the mountains of Oaxaca. Gathering the females before laying, the species would soon be destroyed; and to obviate this progressive destruction, and prevent the mixture of the cotton and mealy cochineals on the same cactus, (the former depriving the latter of all nourishment), nopaleries were established by the natives.

The plants on which the two species of cochineal are propagated, are essentially dif ferent; and this undoubted fact is one of those which indicate a primitive and specific differ ence between the grana fina, and the grana silvestre. Is it probable, if the mealy cochineal was merely a variety of the cotton cochineal, that it would perish on the same cactus which serves for nourishment to the latter, and which botanists designate by the names of cactus opuntia, C. tuna, and C. ficus indica? M. Thiery, in the work already frequently referred to by us*, asserts, that in the plain of Cul-de Sac in Saint Domingo, the cottoncochineal does not live on the cactus tuna, but on the C. pereskia, which he classes among the articulated Indian figs. I am afraid that this naturalist has confounded a variety of opuntia, with the true pereskia, which is a tree with large and thick leaves, and on which I never yet found any cochineal. I look upon

•P. 275-282.

it also as extremely doubtful, that the plant called by Linneus cactus coccinellifer, cultivated in Europe, is the nopal on which the Indians of Oaxaca rear the mealy cochineal. M. Decandolle *, who has thrown much light on this subject, appears to be of my opinion; for he cites the wild nopal of Thiery de Menonville, as synonymous with the cochineal Indian fig, which is entirely different from that of the plantations. In fact, Linneus gave the name of cactus coccinellifer to the Indian fig, with which several botanical gardens of Europe had received the cotton-cochineal, a species with a purple flower (Ficus Indica vermiculos proferens, of Plukenet), which grows wild in Jamaica, the island of Cuba, and almost every where in the Spanish Colonies of the Continent. I have shewn this cactus to well-informed persons, who had carefully examined the nopaleries of Oaxaca, and they have uniformly told me that the nopal of the plantations is essen tially different from it, and that the latter, as is also affirmed by M. Thiery, is never to be found in a wild state. Moreover, the Abbe Clavigerot who lived five years in Misteca, expressly says, that the fruit of the nopal on which the fine cochineal is reared, is small, in, sipid, and white, while the fruit of the cactus

* Plantes grasses de M. M. Redouté et Decandolle, livraison, 24.

+ T. i. p. 115.

coccinellifer is red. The celebrated Ulloa advances in his works that the true nopal is without prickles; but he appears to have confounded this plant with an Indian fig, which we have frequently found in the gardens (conu cos) of the Indians of Mexico and Peru, and which the creoles, on account of its gigantic size, the excellence of its fruits, and the beauty of its articulations, which are of a blueish green, and destitute of prickles, designate by the name of tuna de Castilla. This nopal, the most elegant of all the opuntia, is in fact fit for the nourishment of the mealy cochineal, especially after its birth, but it is seldom to be found in the nopaleries of Oaxaca. If according to the opinion of several distinguished naturalists, the tuna or nopal de Castilla, is but a variety of the ordinary cactus opuntia, originating in cultivation, we must be surprized that the Indian figs cultivated for centuries in our botanical gardens, and those of the nopaleries of New Spain, have never in the same manner lost the prickles, with which the joints are provided.

The Indians, of the intendancy of Oaxaca, do not all follow the same method in rearing the cochineal, which M. Thiery de Menonville saw practised in his rapid passage through San Juan del Re, San Antonio, and Quicatlan. The

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