COCCUS CACTI. 



tion to the females, there being, according to Mr. Ellis, only 

 one to one hundred and fifty or two hundred females are 

 winged, slender, and active, with the body of a red color ; the 

 head is small, but very distinct from the neck, furnished with 

 jointed feelers, and two long, diverging white hairs, about five 

 times the length of the body, which proceed from the tail. 

 The body is elliptical, and furnished with beautifully snow- 

 white wings, which lie flat when the insect rests or walks, but 

 are erected when it flies. The females have no wings, and 

 are sluggish, scarcely ever moving from the part of the plant 

 where they fix themselves ; here they couple and increase con- 

 siderably in size. Each insect lays several thousand eggs, 

 which proceed from the body through an aperture placed at 

 the extremity of the abdomen, and pass under the belly to 

 be there hatched. Death then ensues, the body of the mother 

 dries up, its two membranes become flat, and form a sort of 

 shell or cocoon, in which the eggs are inclosed, and from 

 whence the little cochineals soon proceed. The female only 

 is of commercial value. 



The wild cochineal is collected six times in the year, just 

 before the females begin to lay their eggs, a few being left on 

 the plants to furnish a future supply. But the domesticated 

 insect is collected thrice only in the same space of time, the 

 domestication diminishing the number of breeds to three in 

 a year, owing to their propagation being suspended during 

 the rainy seasons, whilst the downy covering of the wild 

 species allows them to withstand the inclemency of these 

 seasons. At the third gathering, branches of the plant, to 

 which a certain number of females is left adhering, are broken 

 off and preserved with great care under cover during the 

 rainy season, and after this is over they are distributed over 

 the out-door plantations of the cactus, where they soon mul- 

 tiply, and in the space of two months the first crop is fit to 

 be gathered. The insects are detached from the plant by 

 means of a blunt knife, then put into bags and dipped into 

 boiling water to kill them, after which they are dried in the 

 sun ; and although they lose two thirds of their weight in 

 this process, yet about six hundred thousand pounds are car- 

 ried annually to the European markets. 



Cochineal was used by the natives of Mexico before the 

 Spaniards arrived there in 1518, and was introduced into 

 Europe very soon after. The domesticated kind, which is 



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