88 NORTH AMERICAN INSECTS. 



Central America, and is found principally in Texas, Mexi- 

 co, and Lower California. It looks like irregular grains, 

 scarcely as large as a pea, which are convex on one side 

 and concave on the other, and of a reddish, slatish-white 

 color. As has been mentioned, it is a species of Shield- 

 louse, but was always supposed to be a grain growing upon 

 the plants upon which it is found. It is principally found 

 upon the Prickly-pear {Cactus cochenilifer) and other species 

 of Cactus. 



There are two sorts of Cochineal which are used in com- 

 merce; viz., the domestic, which is cultivated upon the 

 Prickly-pear, planted in large quantities expressly as food 

 for this insect, and the wild, which is obtained from the 

 spontaneously-growing Cactus. 



Mexico and Central America are the only countries in 

 which the Cochineal are raised expressly for commerce, 

 and this principally in the provinces of Tlascala, Oaxaca, 

 Guatimala, and Honduras, from which places alone, ac- 

 cording to the account of Humboldt, there are every year 

 exports of this article amounting to two and a half mill- 

 ions of dollars. An enormous sum, indeed, to be annually 

 expended for insect cadavers. 



There are, for this branch of industry alone, plantations 

 containing more than fifty thousand Cactus plants, cultiva- 

 ted for no other purpose than to serve as food for these val- 

 uable little insects. The collection and preparation of this 

 article of commerce most generally falls to the lot of the 

 Indian woman. 



It is a remarkable circumstance that the dried Cochineal 

 never perishes, and may be kept in store-houses perfectly 

 preserved for hundreds of years — a fact which clearly in- 

 dicates the use which Nature intended should be made 

 of it. 



The best treatise on the Cochineal, and one which con- 

 tains every thing that is known or can be said of it, is that 



