INSECTA. 431 



even four) joints. The character also of a single claw alone at the 

 end of the tarsus is not constant. 



Comp. on this family, REAUMUR, Mem. pour serv. a VHist. des Ins. Tom. 

 iv. (Mem. i et 2), pp. i 122; RATZEBURG, Mediz. Zool.u. pp. 214 228, 

 Forst. Ins. in. s. 188. 



Coccus L. (in part). Wings two and often poisers in males; 

 males apterous. Abdomen in males with two terminal setse. 

 ostrum of females short, with long exsertile setse concealed and 

 iflected in abdomen. 



Sub-genera : Lecanium ILLIG., Coccus BUKM., Pseudococcus WEST. 



To this division, and indeed especially to Lecanium, what we advanced 

 in the characters of the family respecting the females has reference ; to this 

 genus alone the name Gallinsecta is appropriate. To it belongs Coccus 

 Ilicis L., Lecanium Ilicis ILLIG., REAUMUR, op. cit. PL v. ; in the south of 

 Europe and in the East, the Jcermes of the Arabians, from which word the 

 appellation Icarmozijn, crimson, for a red colour, is derived. This insect, 

 formerly used in medicine, now only as a dye, has however lost much of 

 its value since the introduction of the Cochenille from America (Mexico), 

 which first came to Europe in 1526. The last-named species, Coccus cacti 

 L., lives upon the Nopal, Cactus coccinellifer (Opuntia coccinellifera 

 DECAND.), cultivated with that view. See figures of the insect in DUMERIL, 

 Consid. gen. s. 1. Ins. PI. 39, fig. 2, BRANDT u. RATZEB. Medizin. Zool. n. 

 Tab. 26, figs. 5 12, 16, 17, BURMEISTER, Handb. der Entomol. 11. Taf. 

 II. fig. i. It is computed that 70,000 dried insects go to a pound of 

 cochenille, and formerly 880,000 pounds of this dye were imported. Comp. 

 on the Cochenille, Natuurlijlce Historic van de Cochenille, bewezen met 

 authentique Documenten (door M. DE RUUSSCHER), Amsterd. 1729, 8vo; 

 THIERRY DE MENONVILLE, Traite de la culture du Nopal et de ^education 

 de la Cochenille. Av. pi. Cap frangais, Paris et Bordeaux, 1787. 8vo. 

 On the introduction of this insect into our East Indian possessions, a 

 report may be found in the Alg. Konst-en Letterbode, 1829. No. 30. 



Another species, Coccus ficus FABR. (probably a species of Lecanium), 

 lives in Bengal on different species of Ficus and other plants ; the young 

 insects are seated close together on the young shoots, and round about the 

 place where they have sucked themselves fast, there drops a thick fluid, 

 which hardens into a tough transparent substance, the gum-resin, gummi- 

 lacca. The dye of this substance is used under the name of lac (lac- dye, 

 lac-lake), as a very beautiful substitute for cochenille, and the shell-lac 

 deprived of the colouring matter as a component of lac-varnish, of sealing- 

 wax, and as an isolating body in electrical apparatus. See on this insect 

 KERR, Phil. Transact. Vol. LXXI. for the year 1781, pp. 374 382. 



Coccus manniparus EHRENB., Symbol, phys,, Ins. Dec. i. Tab. 10; comp. 

 GEIGER'S Journal der Pharmacie, Juli 1830; on Tamarix mannifera in the 

 neighbourhood of Sinai, &c. 



