21st.—I have been looking, in a description of foreign birds, and I find that besides my little favourites with pendant nests, there is another very pretty species in North America, called the red-winged starling; it is found everywhere from Nova Scotia to Mexico—but not in the West Indies. In autumn they migrate to Louisiana in such multitudes that, flying close together, they absolutely darken the air, and three hundred of them have been caught at one drag of a net. The males are distinguished by a bright red patch on the wing or shoulder, and formerly when these were worn by ladies as ornamental trimmings for their gowns, a person collected forty thousand of them in one winter.
They build among aquatic plants, in places that are inaccessible; suspending their nests between two reeds, the leaves of which they interlace and form into a sort of shed or covering. To the nest they give solidity by grass bound with mud; and they line it with the softest and most delicate herbage. This little cradle is always raised above the highest reach of the water over which it hangs; and when they do not find reeds suited to their purpose, they build between the branches of a bush or shrub, but always in a swampy situation. They commit great depredations on the maize when it is just sown, and the farmers therefore steep the seeds in a decoction of hellebore, which stupefies them; but nothing can save the corn when ripe from the myriads of these birds that attack it then.
Another species is called the Baltimore bird, not because it frequents Baltimore, but from the similarity of its colours to those in the arms of the ancient Baltimore family. Its nest, which is formed of tough fibres, is open at top, but with a hole at the side for more conveniently feeding the young; and it is attached by vegetable threads or fibres to the extreme forks of the tulip-tree and the hiccory. The country-people call them fire birds, because, in darting from branch to branch, they look like little flashes of fire.
22d.—I have just learned from my uncle, what gum lac is. I have often wished to know, but I never had sense enough to ask him till this evening. It is a resinous substance produced by an insect called the coccus lacca, and is deposited on the small branches of a tree, for the preservation of its eggs, as well as for the nourishment of the young maggot afterwards. As the gum is laid on, it is formed into small cells, which have as much regularity as those of a honey-comb; and in each cell there is found a little red oval egg, about the size of an ant’s. When the eggs are hatched, the young grubs pierce through the gummy coat that surrounds them, and go off, one by one, leaving their exuviæ behind, which are, in fact, the white membranous substances found constantly in stick lac.
The lac insect is cultivated in many parts of the Mysore in the East Indies; but is found only on trees of some particular species. These trees put out their leaves from the middle of March to the middle of April; during which time, a small twig, having some of these insects on it, is tied on each of them, and by the latter part of October, all the branches are thickly covered with the insect, and almost all the leaves are devoured. The branches are then cut off, spread on mats and dried in the shade. They are afterwards sold to the merchant under the name of stick lac, and are a staple article of commerce in the Mysore, as well as in Assam, a country bordering on Thibet. The only trouble in procuring it, is that of breaking down the branches and taking them to market.
The best gum lac is deep red; it comes to England in five different states:—
1. Stick lac, as in its natural state.
2. Seed lac, which is the former broken into small pieces, and appearing in a granulated form.
3. Lump lac, that is, the seed lac, liquefied by fire, and formed into cakes.
4. Shell lac, or the latter substance thoroughly purified. For this purpose it is put into canvass bags, and held over a charcoal fire, till liquid enough to be squeezed through the canvass; it is then allowed to drop on the smooth bark of the plantain tree, to which it will not adhere, and it spreads itself there in thin transparent layers.