DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 321 



bloom, feeds on a particular kind of Indian fig, called 

 in Mexico, where alone cochineal is produced in any 

 quantity. Nopal, which has always been supposed to be 

 the Cactus cochinilifer^ L., but according to Humboldt 

 is unquestionably a distinct species, which bears fruit 

 internally white. 



Cochineal is chiefly cultivated in the intendency of 

 Oaxaca; and some plantations contain 50 or 60,000 

 nopals in lines, each being kept about four feet high 

 for more easy access in collecting the dye. The culti- 

 vators prefer the most prickly varieties of the plant, as 

 affording protection to the cochineal from insects ; to 

 prevent which from depositing their eggs in the flower 

 or fruit, both are carefully cut off. The greatest quan- 

 tity, however, of cochineal employed in commerce, is 

 produced in small nopaleries belonging to Indians of 

 extreme poverty, called Nopaleros, They plant their 

 nopaleries in cleared ground on the slopes of mountains 

 or ravines two or three leagrues distant from their vil- 

 lages ; and when properly cleaned, the plants are in a 

 condition to maintain tlie cochineal in the third year. 

 As a stock, the proprietor in April or May purchases 

 branches or joints of the Tuna de Castillo, laden with 

 small cochineal insects recently hatched (Semilla). 

 These branches, which may be bought in the market of 

 Oaxaca for about three francs (2^. 6d.) the hundred, are 

 kept for twenty days in the interior of their huts, and 

 then exposed to the open air under a shed, where from 

 their succulency they continue to live for several months. 

 In August and September the mother cochineal insects, 

 now big with young, are placed in nests made of a species 



VOL. I. Y 



