318 DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 



feet specimens of the insect, one of which I lately pro- 

 cured 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 infe- 

 rior equality, containing- less of the astringent principle 

 than the blue galls in the proportion of two to three*. 

 The wliite and blue galls are usually imported mixed 

 in about equal proportions, and are then called galls in 

 sorts. If 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 colour may be communicated 

 w itbout galls, but not at once so cheaply and effectu- 

 ally, as is found by their continued large consumption 

 notwithstanding all the improvements in the art of dye- 

 ing. Other dyeing drugs are afforded by insects, the 

 principal of whicli are Kermes, thf Scarlet Grain of Po- 

 land, Cochineal, L.ac-lahe, and Lac -dye, allof wliich 

 are furnished by different species of Coccus. 



The first of these, the Coccus Ilicis, L., found abun- 

 dantly upon a small species of evergreen o^]s.{Qtiercus 

 coccijera, L.) 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 (i'^in,) to 

 the Greeks under that of Coccus (KoxKog), and to the 

 'Arabians arid Persians under that of Kermes or Alker- 

 mcs ; whence, as Beckmann has shown, and from the 

 epithet vermiculalum given to it in the middle ages, 



' Oiivirr's Traveh in ]'gyi)ty &c. ii. til. 



