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 creature could never be taken or killed, because it suddenly baffles all the designs of men, leaving them in the dark, by clouding that light ."

The existence of this animal is still believed. The Missionary Fr. Narciso y Barcel says, in a letter written in 1791, "I had scarcely reached Manoa before I began the commission with which his Excellency the Viceroy charged me, concerning the search of the carbuncle. I found a Pagan of the Pira nation, who has not only seen one, but has killed one, and thrown it away, through ignorance, as a thing of no value. He assured me that there were two kinds, one about a quarter, the other about half a vara high. The curtain, or lid, with which it covers its splendor, is, he says, a thing of exquisite plumage, and that it has on its breast spots of singular beauty. He called it in his