166 INSECT DYES. 



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 Phoeniceans 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 

 was the dye probably used for the Tabernacle curtains : then, 

 serving for awhile to heighten the Pagan splendors of Greece 

 and Kome, 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^iia 

 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. 



An African species of Mite is also used as a dye, from 

 whence it has been suggested to try for the same purpose that 

 brilliant little Insect, the scarlet-satin Mite, so common a fre- 

 quenter of our gardens in early summer. 



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 

 product of her labours is applied by man. How greatly is the 

 religious pageantry of the Roman-catholic countries of Europe 

 and America, indebted for much of its splendor, and for more 

 than half, perhaps, of its influence on the mind (dazzled through 

 the eye), to the giant tapers of their sacred edifices, each the 



