Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/397

Rh has been so forcibly pointed out by the cabinet of Madrid, namely, the yellow bark, there named calisaya, which was thought to be peculiar to the province of la Paz, and which, having been already brought to Lima by Bezares, has been found to be of the same species, and to possess the same active qualities. Who could have imagined that the cinchona grew in Guamalies, and of the two most esteemed kinds, the dusky, unfortunately not the only one which has been subjected to that lot. The degree of interest occasioned by so extraordinary a species, obliges us to relate what has been observed respecting the sustillo, which, it is to be lamented, is sought after by the Indians as a most delicious food. This caterpillar is bred in the pacae, a tree well known in Peru, and named by the Peruvian Flora, MS. mimosa inga. In proportion to the vigour and majestic growth of this tree, is the number of the insects it nourishes, and which are of the kind and size of the bombyx, or silk-worm. When they are completely satiated, they unite at the body of the tree, seeking the part which is best adapted to the extension they have to take. They there form, with the greatest symmetry and regularity, a web which is larger or smaller, according to the number of the operants; and more or less pliant, according to the quality of the leaf by which they have been nourished, the whole of them remaining beneath. This envelope, on which they bestow such a texture, consistency, and lustre, that it cannot be decomposed by any practicable expedient, having been finished, they all of them unite, and ranging themselves in vertical and even files, form in the centre a perfect square. Being thus disposed, each of them makes its cocoon, or pod, of a coarse and short silk, in which it is transformed, from the grub into the chrysalis, and from the chrysalis into the popilio, or moth. In proportion as they afterward quit their confinement, to take wing, they detach, wherever it is most convenient to them, their envelope, or web, a portion of which remains suspended to the trunk of the tree, where it waves to and fro like a streamer, and which becomes more or less white, according to the air and humidity the season and situation admit. A complete nest has already been transmitted to his Catholic Majesty; and, by the hands of his naturalist, Don Antonio Pineda, a piece of this natural silk paper, measuring a yard and a half, of an elliptical shape, which is peculiar to all of them. red