166 INSECT DYES. 



the south of Europe and Asia, has furnished from the earliest 

 ages a blood-red crimson dye, supplanted now by the Cochineal, 

 It was known to the Phoeiiiceans under the name of Tola ; to 

 the Greeks under that of Coccus ; to the Arabians and Persians 

 under that of Kermes or Alkermes. Kirby suggests that this 

 was the dye probably used for the Tabernacle curtains : then, 

 serving for awhile to heighten the Pagan splendors of Greece 

 and Rome, it returned once more to sacred uses, in the scrip- 

 tural figures of the Brussels and Flemish tapestries. 



Lac (called either stick, seed, or shell-lac, according to its 

 state of preparation) is the secretion of another sort of Coccus 

 found on various Indian trees, and is used also as a red dye, 

 but more extensively in varnishes, japan, and sealing-wax. 



An African species of Mite is also used as a dye, from 

 whence it has been suggested to try for the same purpose that 

 brilliant little Insect, the scarlet -satin Mite, so common a fre- 

 quenter of our gardens in early summer. 



But of all Insect productions, none perhaps is more useful, 

 none certainly more interesting, than wax. The little Bee her- 

 self might verily become inflated with self-importance could she 

 be aware of the exalted and varied purposes to which this pro- 

 duct of her labours is applied by man. How greatly is the reli- 

 gious pageantry of the Roman- catholic countries of Europe and 

 America, indebted for much of its splendor, and for more than 

 half, perhaps, of its influence on the mind (dazzled through 

 the eye), to the 'giant tapers of their sacred edifices, each the 



