"WURRUS" DYE FROM "ROTTLERA TINCTORIA." 73 



the latter by the waxy matter being deposited over the surface 1856 - 

 of the branch, and not confined to a coating of the insect. The 

 specimens submitted to my examination are probably of con- 

 siderable age, as they have been much deteriorated in a com- 

 mercial point of view, by being attacked by other insects, namely 

 a species of ant, of which I found the heads and other parts of 

 several specimens ; and a species of moth, of which I found 

 portions of many chrysalides ; the larvae of which, I do not 

 doubt, had devoured the animal matter of the Cocci, as well as 

 burrowed into the wax. There were also some fragments of a 

 Curculio ( Otiorhynchus . ? ), but these, I suppose, must have been 

 taken accidentally on the trees in collecting the Cocci. 



ON WURRUS, A DYE PKODUCED BY ROTTLERA 

 TINCTORIA. 



( Wurrus-Farbstoff, von Rottlera tinctoria.) 



AMONG the drugs forwarded to England by James Vaughau, 

 Esq., late port-surgeon at Aden, and described in recent num- 

 bers of the Pharmaceutical Journal, was a substance sent under 

 the name of Wurrus or Waras. 1 It consists of a brick-red, 

 granular powder with but little taste and smell. Examined 

 under the microscope it is seen to be composed of small, round- 

 ish, translucent grains of a ruby red colour, much resembling 

 (except in colour) the grains of lupuline. 



Upon showing some of the Wurrus to Mr. Alexander Gibson, 

 of Bombay, when he was in London, he immediately suggested 

 that it was the red powder rubbed from the capsules of Rottlera 



_, , , , . r ., .,, tinctoria. 



tinctoma. Koxb. ; and upon a subsequent comparison ot it with 

 specimens in the herbarium of the Linnean Society, I soon 

 convinced myself of the correctness of his opinion. Mr. Gibson 

 informed me that the tree is abundant in the Bombay Presi- 

 dency, where it attains a height of from twelve to fifteen feet ; 

 and that it is frequently observed in the vicinity of streams and 

 on the edge of the jungle. 



1 See Pharm. Journ., vol. xii.,p. 386. 



