122 NORTH AMERICAN INSECTS. 



trees are their particular resort, and may often be 

 seen covered with them, making the branches look 

 rough and knotty, and the leaves and fruit dirty and 

 black from the rain washing upon them from the 

 bodies of these filthy Shield-lice. 



The Cochineal. (Coccus Cacti.) 



My readers, I presume, will find it an agreeable 

 transition to pass from an Insect whose only dis- 

 tinguishing quality seems to be its noxiousness, to one 

 justly celebrated for its utility — to one abounding in 

 interest and curiosity — to one to which they are in- 

 debted for the most beautiful of the colours which 

 adorn their persons and " beautify the human form 

 divine." 



It is a wonderful thing to look abroad over the" 

 face of Nature, and see how every mineral, vegetable, 

 and animal production is constituted so as to minister, ■ 

 in some way, to the wants of man — to see the vege- 

 table world silently engaged in extracting mineral 

 matters from the soil, and storing them up for man — 

 and man, impelled by instinct, selecting these as his 

 own proper food — to behold not only his food and 

 drink flowing constantly to him through the ever- 

 revolving cycle of three kingdoms, but even his 

 most valued ornaments presented through the same 



