COCHINEAL INSECT. 397 



SECTION VI. 



Cochineal, Kermes, and Gum. Lac Insects* 

 Coccus. Linn. 



These all belong to one common genus, which exhibits various 

 peculiarities, but particularly that of having the males possessed of 

 four wings, and the females apterous or wingless ; the males, more* 

 over, being much smaller than the females. 



1. Cochineal Insect. 

 Coccus cacti. Linn. 



This is the most important of the whole fraternity, and is celebrated 

 for the beauty of the colour which it yields, when properly pre- 

 pared. This species is a native of South America, and is pecu- 

 liarly cultivated in the country of Mexico, where it feeds on the 

 plants called cactus cochenillifer, and cactus opuntia. The female 

 officinal cochineal insect, in its full-grown pregnant or torpid state, 

 swells or grows to such a size, in proportion to that of its first or 

 creeping state, that the legs, antennae, and proboscis are so small, 

 with respect to the rest of the animal, as hardly to be discovered 

 except by a good eye, or by the assistance of a glass ; so that on 

 a general view it bears as great a resemblance to a seed or berry as 

 to an animal. This was the cause of that difference in opinion 

 which long subsisted between several authors ; some maintaining 

 that cochineal was a berry, while others contended that it was an 

 insect. We must also here advert to another error ; viz. that the 

 cochineal was a species of coccinella or lady-bird. This seems to 

 have taken its rise from specimens of the coccinella cacti of Lin- 

 naeus being sometimes accidentally intermixed with the cochineal in 

 gathering and drying. 



When the female cochineal-insect is arrived at its full size, it 

 fixes itself to the surface of the leaf, and envelopes itself in a white 

 cottony matter, which it is supposed to spin or draw through its 

 proboscis in a continued double filament, it being observed that 

 two filaments are frequently seen proceeding from the tip of the 

 proboscis in the full-grown insect. 



