184 DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 



cochineal, which, being thus less subject to the adulterations so often 

 practised by the Indians, bears a higher price both in America and 

 Europe. 1 



The quantity annually exported from South America was said by Hum- 

 boldt to be at the time he wrote 32,000 arrobas, there worth 500,040/. 

 sterling 2 ; a vast amount to arise from so small an insect, and well cal- 

 culated to show us the absurdity of despising any animals on account of 

 their minuteness. So important was the acquisition of this insect re- 

 garded, that the Court of Directors of the East India Company formerly 

 offered a reward of 6000/. to any one who should introduce it into India, 

 where hitherto the Company had only succeeded in procuring from Brazil 

 the wild kind producing the sylvestre cochineal, which is of very inferior 

 value. The true cochineal insect and the Cactus on which it feeds are 

 said to have been of late years successfully introduced into Spain and the 

 new French colony of Algiers, and now exist both in the stores of the 

 Jardin des Plantes at Paris, and in those of King Leopold at Clare- 

 mont. 3 



Lac is the produce of an insect formerly supposed to be a kind of ant 

 or bee 4 , but now ascertained to be a species of Coccus; and it is col- 

 lected from various trees in India, where it is found so abundantly, that, 

 were the consumption ten times greater than it is, it could be readily 

 supplied. This substance is made use of in that country in the manu- 

 facture of beads, rings, and other female ornaments. Mixed with sand, it 

 forms grindstones ; and added to lamp or ivory black, being first dissolved 

 in water with the addition of a little borax, it composes an ink not easily 

 acted upon when dry by damp or water. In this country, where it is dis- 

 tinguished by the names stick-lac, when in its native state, unseparated 

 from the twigs to which it adheres ; seed-lac, when separated, pounded, 

 and the greater part of the colouring matter extracted by water; lump-lac, 

 when melted and made into cakes ; and shell-lac, when strained and formed 

 into transparent laminae; it has hitherto been chiefly employed in the 

 composition of varnishes, japanned ware, and sealing-wax : but for several 

 years past it has been applied to a still more important purpose, originally 

 suggested by Dr. Roxburgh that of a substitute for cochineal in dyeing 

 scarlet. The first preparations from it with this view were made in con- 

 sequence of a hint from Dr. Bancroft, and large quantities of a substance 

 termed lac-lake, consisting of the colouring matter of stick-lac precipitated 

 from an alkaline lixivium by alum, were manufactured at Calcutta and sent 

 to this country, where at first the consumption was so considerable, that 

 in the three years previous to 1810, Dr. Bancroft states that the sales of 

 it at the India House equalled in point of colouring matter half a million 

 of pounds weight of cochineal. More recently, however, a new pre- 

 paration of lac colour, under the name of lac-dye, has been imported from 

 India, which has been substituted for the lac-lake, and with such ad- 

 vantage, that the East India Company are said to have saved in a few 

 months 14,000/. in the purchase of scarlet cloths dyed with this colour 



1 Humboldt's Political Essay on New Spain, iii. 72 79. 



2 Ibid. iii. 64. Dr. Bancroft estimated the annual consumption of cochineal in 

 Great Britain at about 750 bags, or 150,000 Ibs. ; worth 375,000/. 



3 Trans. Ent . Soc. Land. iii. proc. ix. 4 Lesser, L. ii. 165. 



