46 UTILIZATION OP MINUTE LIFE. 



afterwards published, and may be consulted with 

 profit by rearers of cochineal to this day.* 



It was generally thought for a long time, and, 

 indeed, it is still believed by many, that the cochi- 

 neal derives its colour from the nopal on which it 

 lives, the flowers of which are red, but Thieri ob- 

 served that the juice on which the insect nourishes 

 itself is of a green colour, and, moreover, that the 

 cochineal can be reared and multiplied upon certain 

 species of opuntia, whose flowers are not red. I 

 should mention here, however, that in the ' e Philoso- 

 phical Transactions," vol. 50, it is stated that when 

 Cactus opuntia is given to children, their urine 

 becomes of a lively red colour, and we shall see 

 presently that carminium, the colouring-matter of 

 cochineal, has been discovered in the vegetable 

 world, in a plant of the Orchidas family. 



The wild cochineal has been found in many parts 

 of North America. Dr. Garden observed it in South 

 Carolina and Georgia ; it has since been discovered 

 in Jamaica and Brazil. Anderson thought he had 

 seen it wild in Madras, but the species he took for 

 the true cochineal turned out to be another species 

 of Coccus, a kind of Kermes. 



* " Traite de la Culture du Nopal et de 1'fiducation de la 

 Cochenille dans les Colonies Francaises de 1'Amerique, precede d'un 

 Voyage a Guaxaca." Par M. Thieri de Menonville. " Annales de 

 Chimie," torn. v. 



