THE TEAK TREE. 19 



found in great plenty a small species of oak, called 

 the Kermes ( Quercus cocci/era), which is remarkable 

 for nourishing large quantities of a small insect 

 (Coccus ilicis), which, being gathered, forms an 

 article of commerce called kermes. The declivities 

 of the Sierra Morena are covered with the kermes 

 oak ; and many of the inhabitants of the province 

 of Murcia have no other mode of living than 

 gathering the kermes. Latreille has united this 

 insect to the cochineal family, which it resembles, not 

 only in its form, but in producing a scarlet dye. Till 

 the discovery of the cochineal insect upon certain 

 species of the Cactus in South America, the kermes 

 was the only substance used in dyeing scarlet, from 

 the period of the disuse and loss of the Murex and 

 Buccinum, the shell-fish that produced the Tyrian 

 purple of the Romans. The people of Barbary em- 

 ploy the kermes for dyeing the scarlet caps used by 

 the natives in the Levant, and they prefer that of 

 Spain to their own produce. In England, and in 

 other countries where manufactures are extensively 

 carried on, the cochineal has almost entirely super- 

 seded the use of the insect scarlet dye of Europe. 



Though the TEAK TREE ( Tectona grandis] be a tree 

 of quite a different family from the oak, and a native 

 of India, it is used in ship-building like the oak, and 

 has some resemblance to it in its timber. It is a 

 tree of- uncommon size, with leaves twenty inches 

 long, and sixteen broad, and bears a hard nut. The 

 country ships in India, as well as many very fine 

 ones that trade between India and this country, are 

 built of it. A specimen was introduced into the 

 Royal Gardens at Kew, about sixty years ago; but 

 from the warmth of the climate of which it is a 

 native, it can never become a forest-tree in this 

 country. 



