TREHALA OR TRICALA. 159 



1859. 



NOTE ON TWO INSECT-PEODUCTS FKOM PERSIA. 



(Read before the Linnean Society, December 16th, 1858.) 



IN the month of June last, my friend Professor Guibourt, of 

 Paris, laid before the Academic des Sciences 1 some account of a 

 remarkable substance called Treliala, the cocoon of a Curcu- Trehala. 

 lionidous insect found in Persia, where, as well as in other parts 

 of the East, it enjoys some celebrity as the basis of a mucilagin- 

 ous drink administered to the sick. 



Specimens of this substance, as well as of another insect-pro- 

 duct of Persia, together with the insects themselves, were pre- 

 sented a few years ago to the British Museum by W. K. Loftus, W. K. Loftus. 

 Esq., who obtained them while engaged by the British Govern- 

 ment on the question of the Turco-Persian boundaries. 



The precise determination of the species of these insects being 

 a matter of doubt, they have at my request been lately examined 

 by M. Jekel, of Paris, an entomologist with -whom the family of M. Jewel's 

 Curculionidce has long been an especial study. One of these ldentlficatlon - 

 insects M. Jekel has identified with a species of wide distribu- 

 tion ; the other proving undescribed, he has drawn up a descrip- 

 tion of it, which, accompanied by a figure, I have the honour to 

 lay before the Linnean Society. To this, I venture to add a few 

 observations upon the productions to which I have alluded. 



The first of these is Trehala or Tricala, under which name it Trehala, or 

 formed part of the collection of Materia Medica sent by M. Tricala. 

 Delia Sudda, of Constantinople, to the Paris Exhibition of 

 1855, and since deposited in the Ecole de Pharmacie in Paris. 



Trehala (Fig. 2) consists of cocoons of an ovoid or globular 

 form, about of an inch in length ; their inner surface is com- 

 posed of a smooth, hard, dusky layer, external to which is a 

 thick, rough, tuberculated coating of a greyish-white colour and 

 earthy appearance. Some of the cocoons have attached to them 

 the remains of the tomentose stalk of the plant upon which they 

 were formed ; others have portions of a tomentose spiny leaf 



1 Comptes Rendus, 21 Juin, 1858, p. 1213. 



