216 DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 



enabling the poet, the philosopher, the politician, the moralist, and the 

 divine, to embody their thoughts for the amusement, instruction, direction, 

 and reformation of mankind. The insect which produces the gall-nut is 

 of the genus Cynijps of Linne, but was not known to him or to Fabricius. 

 Olivier first described it under the name of Diplolej^is gallcB tinctoria,^ 

 The galls originate on the leaves of a species of oak (^Qiteixus infectoria) 

 very common throughout Asia Minor, in many parts of which they are 

 collected by the poorer inhabitants, and exported from Smyrna, Aleppo, 

 and other ports in the Levant, as well as from the East Indies, whither a 

 part of those collected are now carried. The galls most esteemed are 

 those known in commerce under the name of blue galls, being the produce 

 of the first gathering before the fly has issued from the gall. It will not 

 be uninteresting to you to know, that from these when bruised may occa- 

 sionally be obtained perfect specimens of the insect, one of which 1 lately 

 procured in this way. The galls which have escaped the first searches, 

 and from most of which the fly has emerged, are called white galls, and 

 are of a very inferior quality, containing less of the astringent principle 

 than the blue gall in the proportion of two to three.^ The white and 

 blue galls are usually imported mixed in about equal proportions, and are 

 then called " galls in sorts." U no substitute equal to galls as a constituent 

 part of ink has been discovered, the same may be said of these productions 

 as one of the most important of our dyeing materials constantly employed 

 in dyeing black. It is true that this color may be communicated without 

 galls, but not at once so cheaply and effectually, as is found by their 

 continued large consumption, notwithstanding all the improvements in the 

 art of dyeing. 



Other dyeing drugs are afforded by insects, the principal of which are 

 Chermes, the Scarlet Grain of Poland, Cochineal, Lac-lake, and Lac-dye, 

 all of which are furnished by different species of Coccus. 



The first of these, the Coccus llicis, found abundantly upon a small 

 species of evergreen oak (^Qucrcus coccifera), common in the south of 

 France, and many other parts of the world, has been employed to impart 

 a blood red or crimson dye to cloth from the earliest ages, and was known 

 to the Phoenicians before the time of Moses under the name of Tola or 

 Thola (y^in)? to the Greeks under that of Coccus (Koxy.oc^, and to the 

 Arabians and Persians under that of Kermes or Alkerme.s ; whence, as 

 Beckmann has shown, and from the epithet vermiculatum given to it in the 

 middle ages, when it was ascertained to be the produce of a worm, have 

 sprung the Latin coccineus, the French cramoisi and vermeil, and our 

 crimson and vermilion. It was most probably with this substance that the 

 curtains of the tabernacle (Exod. xxvi. &c.) were dyed deep red (which 

 the word scarlet, as our translators have rendered la^a ni^biri) then implied, 

 not the color now so called, which was not known in James the First's 

 reign when the Bible was translated), — it was with this that the Grecians 

 and Romans produced their crimson ; and from the same source were 

 derived the imperishable reds of the Brussels and other Flemish tapestries. 

 In short, previous to the discovery of cochineal, this was the material uni- 



' Encyclop. Insect, vi. 281. It had better, perhaps, as compound trivial names are bad, be 

 called Cynips Scriptornm. 



* Olivier's Travels in Egypt, &c. ii. 64. 



