INSECT DYES. WAX. 69 



genous. Of the great importance of this Insect production as 

 an article of commerce, we may form an idea from the recorded 

 facts, that the East India Company offered a reward of .6000 

 for its introduction into India, and that some years ago the 

 annual consumption in Great Britain alone was reckoned at 

 750 bags, worth .375,000. 



Another species of Coccus, found on the evergreen oak in 

 the south of Europe and Asia, has furnished from the earliest 

 ages a blood-red crimson dye, supplanted now by the Cochineal. 

 It was known to the Phoenicians under the name of Tola ; to 

 the Greeks under that of Coccus ; to the Arabians and Persians 

 under that of Kermes or Alkermes. Kirby suggests that this 

 w r as the dye probably used for the Tabernacle curtains : then, 

 serving for awhile to heighten the Pagan splendours of Greece 

 and Rome, it returned once more to sacred uses, in the scrip- 

 tural figures of the Brussels and Flemish tapestries. 



Lac (called either stick, seed, or shell-lac, according to 

 its state of preparation) is the secretion of another sort of 

 Coccus found on various Indian trees, and is used also as 

 a red dye, but more extensively in varnishes, japan, and 

 sealing-wax. 



But of all Insect productions, none perhaps is more useful, 

 none certainly more interesting, than wax. The little Bee her- 

 self might verily become inflated with self-importance could she 

 be aware of the exalted and varied purposes to which this pro- 

 duct of her labours is applied by man. Of all substances for 

 the illumination of holy fanes, wax certainly is the most appro- 

 priate so sweet, so pure, and, in its origin, leading back the 

 thoughts to beautiful fields and groves and gardens. In the 

 halls of festive splendour, no less conspicuously though less 

 appropriately, shines the produce of the Bee's rustic labour. 

 Or walk we along the streets, or enter the lounges for amuse- 

 ment, does not waxen imagery, from the shaven Blue-Beards 

 and pink Fatimas of the barber's window, to the noted and 

 notorious of the earth, the monarchs and the murderers of 



