140 OUR INSECT FRIENDS AND FOES 



industry is still carried out, although the intro- 

 duction of aniline dyes has considerably lessened 

 its value. 



The insects are reared in specially planted 

 plantations of cactus. In the spring of the year 

 a certain number of females are placed on the 

 trees, where they deposit their eggs, and the 

 resulting larvae spread all over the prickly 

 branches, which in a short time become covered 

 with stationary females. This generation con- 

 stitutes the harvest, and when they have become 

 swollen with eggs (the time when they are 

 valuable for making the dye) they are scraped 

 from the plants, collected on trays, and killed by 

 being plunged into boiling water, or placed in a 

 hot oven ; they are then thoroughly dried in the 

 sun andipounded up into the well-known cochineal 

 powder. 



C. lacca, another member of this strange 

 family of insects, is the lac-insect that produces 

 the substance from which shellac is made, and is 

 much used in the manufacture of varnishes, 

 cement, and as a stiffening medium. It also 

 enters into the composition of sealing-wax ; 

 while the brilliantly coloured lacquered toys, 

 boxes, and ornaments made in China and India 

 are coated with lac mixed with pigments. 



The lac-insect is a native of China, India, Siam, 

 Borneo, and many of the islands of the Eastern 

 Archipelago. It lives on the Indian fig tree, the 

 jujube tree, and one or two -others. The female, 

 after the manner of her species, fixes herself on the 

 young sappy branches of the trees and begins to 

 form round her a cell or cocoon of lac, with 



