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 

