coccus. 
191 
But of all the Insects of this genus by far the 
most important is the Coccus Cacti or Cochineel 
Coccus, so celebrated for the beaut}'' of the colour 
which it yields when properly prepared. This 
species is a native of South- America, and is pecu- 
liarly cultivated in the country of Mexico, where 
it feeds on the plants called Cactus cochenillifer, 
and Cactus Opuntia. The female or officinal 
Cochineel insect, in its full-grown pregnant or 
torpid state, swells or grows to such a size, in 
proportion to that of its first or creeping state, 
that the legs, antennae, and proboscis are so small 
with respect to the rest of the animal as hardly to 
be discovered except by a good eye, or by the 
assistance of a glass; so that on a general view it 
bears as great a resemblance to a seed or berry as 
to an animal. This was the c^iuse of that differ- 
ence in opinion which long subsisted between seve- 
ral authors ; some maintaining that Cochineel was 
a berry ; while others contended that it was an in- 
sect. We must also here advert to another error; 
viz. that the Cochineel was a species of Coccinella 
or Lady-Bird. This seems to have taken its rise 
from specimens of the Coccinella Cacti of Linnaeus 
being sometimes accidentally intermixed with the 
Cochineel in gathering and drying. 
When the female Cochineel-Insect is arrived at 
its full size, it fixes itself to the surface of the leaf, 
and envelops itself in a white cottony matter* 
which it is supposed to spin or draw throughrits 
proboscis in a continued double filament, it being 
observed that two filaments are freipiently seen 
