Pactvaed.] llsrSECTS OF TIIE PLANT HOUSE. 



115 



Fig. 78. 



Yunnan. In the district of Hochin and AVhy-li-tzou, where 

 the culture of the eggs is alone attended to, both frost and 

 snow are experienced, so that it would not be difficult to rear 

 the insect in Europe, and considering its prolific nature, the 

 production of white wax might repay the trouble of accli- 

 matizing this curious insect." 



A near relation of the wax is the cochineal insect which 

 affords us such an invaluable d3'e (carmine). This insect 

 (Fig. 78, showing the Avingless female, natural size and en- 

 larged, and the two-winged male) is now abundant on the 

 prickly pear in one corner of our Union (Key AYest) where 

 we have found both sexes in great abundance. The "grain" 

 is the female Coccus dried. So much 

 has been written about this useful in- 

 sect, of its mode of life and the 

 methods of collecting and preparing 

 it that we will not Aveary our readers 

 with a repetition of it. Its value, 

 however, in commerce is very great. 

 In 1855, before red garments became 

 fashionable, says Dr. Lankester in 

 his "Uses of Animals," Great Britain 

 imported 1400 tons of cochineal (it takes 70,000 of these in- 

 sects to make a pound) which was valued at about £700,000, 

 and since then their consumption has probably greatly in- 

 creased. "Carmine," he adds, "is one of the most powerful 

 of coloring matters ; one grain of it, it is said, will dye a 

 single silk fibre upwards of three thousand yards in length." 



Other kinds of Coccus produce a carmine dye, and our 

 own species, were the individuals sufficiently abundant, could 

 be used for this purpose. Before cochineal was introduced 

 into Europe, the bodies of another kind of Coccus, known as 

 "grains of Kermes," wore used in Europe, especially about 

 the shores of the Mediterranean. Lankester says that "it is 

 found extensively in Algeria, an<l the red Fez caps, which 



10 



Cochineal Insect. 



