COBURG COCCUS. 



287 



many, bounded by a number of other small German 

 principalities. The country is mostly mountainous, 

 with fertile plains : minerals and forests abound in 

 it. According to the law of August, 1821, regulat- 

 ing the constitution of the principality, there is a body 

 ofrepresentatives, who have a voice in legislation, 

 end particularly in the imposition of taxes. Accord- 

 ing to the law of Dec. 11, 1809, the feudal privi- 

 leges were to be abolished by degrees. Coburg has 

 one vote in the general assembly of the diet, and is 

 bound to furnish a contingent of 800 men to the for- 

 ces of the German confederation. The duke of Saxe- 

 Coburg received, in the division of the former duke- 

 dom of Gotha-Altenburg (edict of Nov. 15, 1826), 

 the duchy of Gotha, and several smaller terriorities ; 

 so that the dominions of the present duke of Saxe- 

 Coburg-Gotha comprise 969 square miles, and 

 139,440 inhabitants, of which 201 square miles and 

 83,000 inhabitants are comprised in the principality 

 of Coburg and its dependencies, which were subject 

 to the duke previous to the large accession of terri- 

 tory just mentioned. 



Coburg, the capital of the above dukedom, is situ- 

 ated in the beautiful Itzgrund (valley of the Itz), with 

 8100 inhabitants, an excellent school, (gymnasium 

 illustre), several manufactories, two fairs and consid- 

 erable trade. 



COBURG. Frederic Josias, duke of Saxe-Co- 

 burg, an Austrian field-marshal, was born in 1737 ; 

 in 1788, took Choczim, and, in connexion with the 

 Russian general Suwaroff, defeated the Turks at Foc- 

 sani in 1789, and conquered Bucharest. In 1793, 

 he commanded against the French, was victorious at 

 Aldenhoven and Neerwinden, took Valenciennes, 

 Conde, Cambray,and Landrecy ; but when the duke 

 of York separated himself from the Austrians in 

 order to besiege Dunkirk, Coburg was beaten at Mau- 

 beuge, Clerfayt at Tournsv and the British at Dun- 

 kirk ; and, in consequence of this, Coburg was again 

 defeated at Fleurus and Aldenhoven. He retreated 

 over the Rhine, gave up his command, and died in 

 his native city in J815. 



COBURG, SAXE, PRINCE LEOPOLD OP. See Char- 

 lotte Augusta. 



COCAGNA ; an annual public festival instituted 

 by the government of Naples, in which food and wine 

 in fountains and from barrels are given to the peo- 

 ple. Hence it is said of a country of comfort and 

 plenty, " It is the land of Cockaigne." Something 

 similar were the congiaria of the ancient Romans. 

 Mats de cocagne ; masts besmeared with soap for the 

 public amusement, which those who have courage 

 for the enterprise endeavour to climb, for the sake 

 of a prize which is fixed on the top. 



COCCEII, HENRY, born, 1644, at Bremen, studied 

 at Leyden in 1667, and in 1670, in England ; was, in 

 J672, professor of law at Heidelberg, and, in 1688, 

 at Utrecht; in 1690, regular professor of laws at 

 Frankfort on the Oder ; repaired to the Hague, in 

 1702, without giving up his office, on occasion of the 

 disputes as to the hereditary succession of the house 

 of Orange; received for his services, in 1713, the 

 rank of oaron of the empire, and died in 1719. As 

 a lawyer, he was the oracle of many courts, and his 

 system of German public law (juris publici prudentia) 

 was almost a universal academical text-took of this 

 science. Cocceii did not owe his profound juridical 

 learning so much to skilful teachers, for he had only 

 heard lectures on the institutes, but to his great in- 

 dustry, which he carried to such an extent, that he 

 allowed but a few hours each night to sleep, lived 

 with the utmost temperance, and even abstained 

 several years from taking dinner. He was mild, ob- 

 liging, and of an exemplary honesty and disinterest- 

 edness. His disputations, Exercitationes curiosa:, and 



Dissert, varii Argumenti, in 4 vols. 4to ; his Con- 

 siliaet Deductiones, 2 vols. in folio; his Grotius ilius 

 tratus, 3 vols. in folio. His eldest son, Samuel, ba- 

 ron of Cocceii, born, 1679, at Heidelberg, was, in!702, 

 professor at Frankfort on the Oder, and rose, through 

 many degrees, to the dignity of grand chancellor <{ 

 all the Prussian dominions. He died in 1755. 

 Charles Louis Cocceii, who died in 1808, in Prussia, 

 was the last of this distinguished family. 



COCCUS, in zoology ; a genus of insects of the 

 order of heteroptera. family' gallinsecta. Generic 

 character ; antennae filiform, of ten or eleven articula- 

 tions in both sexes, shorter than the body ; rostrum 

 pectorale, conspicuous only in the females ; males 

 with two large incumbent wings ; females apterous, 

 subtomentose, fixed, and becoming gall-shaped or 

 shield-shaped after impregnation. These little in- 

 sects are remarkable for many peculiarities in their 

 habits and conformation. The males are elongated 

 in their form, have long, large wings, and are desti- 

 tute of any obvious means of suction ; the females, 

 on the contrary, are of a rounded or oval form, hav*^ 

 no wings, but possess a beak or sucker, attached to 

 the breast, by which they fix themselves to the plants 

 on which they live, and through which they draw 

 their nourishment. At a certain period of their life, 

 the females attach themselves to the plant or tree 

 which they inhabit, and remain thereon immovable 

 during the rest of their existence. In this situation, 

 they are impregnated by the male; after which, 

 their body increases considerably, in many species 

 losing its original form, and assuming that of a gall, 

 and, after depositing the eggs, drying up, and form- 

 ing a habitation for the young. This change of form 

 is not, however, constant to all the species, which 

 has given rise to a division of the genus into two sec- 

 tions : those which assume a gall shape, in which 

 the rings of the abdomen are totally obliterated, are 

 called kermes by some authors ; and those which re- 

 tain the distinct sections of the abdomen, notwith- 

 standing the great enlargement of the body, are call- 

 ed true cocci, or cochineal. They are impregnated 

 in the spring, after having passed the winter fixed to 

 plants, particularly in the bifurcations, and under the 

 small branches. Towards the commencement of 

 summer, they have acquired their greatest size, and 

 resemble a little convex mass, without the least ap- 

 pearance of head or feet, or other organs. Many 

 species are covered with a sort of cottony down. 

 Each female produces thousands of eggs, which are 

 expelled by a small aperture at the extremity of the 

 body. As soon as they are produced, they pass im- 

 mediately under the parent insect, which becomes 

 their covering and guard ; by degrees, her body dries 

 up, and the two membranes flatten, and form a sort 

 of shell, under which the eggs, and subsequently the 

 young ones, are found coccated. Soon after the death 

 of the mother, the young insects leave their hiding- 

 place, and seek their nourishment on the leaves, the 

 juices of which they suck through the inflected ros- 

 trum, placed beneath their breast. 



But it is with a view to their importance as an 

 article of commerce, arising from their use in the 

 arts, that the insects of this genus are particularly 

 interesting. When it is considered that the most 

 brilliant dyes and the most beautiful pigments, as 

 well as the basis of the most useful kinds of cement, 

 are their product, it will be acknowledged, that to 

 none of the insect tribe, except, perhaps to the bee 

 and the gall insect, are we more indebted than to 

 these singular and apparently insignificant little be- 

 ings. Kermes, the scarlet grain of Poland, cochi- 

 neal, lac-lake, lac-dye, and all the modifications of 

 gum-lac, are either the perfect insects dried, or the 

 secretions which they form. The first mentioned 



