ORDER VII. HEMIPTERA. — COCHINEAL. 307 
C. Cacti. — This species exceeds all others in importance, inasmuch as 
it furnishes the cochineal of commerce, and constitutes one of the chief 
riches of Mexico. The female is of a dark-brown color, covered with a 
white down. ‘The male is of a dark-red, with white wings. 
These insects are rather remarkable, in that the male and female are so 
unlike, that one would take them for animals of different genera. 
The male presents an elongated, depressed body, of a dark-brown red. 
Its head, small, furnished with two long, feathery antennw, has only a rudi- 
mentary beak. The abdomen is terminated by two fine hairs, longer than its 
body. The wings, perfectly transparent, reach beyond the extremity of its 
abdomen, and cross each other horizontally over its back. It is lively and 
active. The female presents quite a different appearance. It is, in the first 
place, twice as large as the male, convex aboye, flat below. The larvae are 
born in the dried-up body of their dead mother, the skeleton of the mother 
serving as a cradle. The eggs are attached to the lower part of the moth- 
er’s body. 
“When the abdomen of the mother is empty, its lower side draws up 
towards the upper side, and the two together form a pretty large cavity. 
When the mother dies, which is not long in happening, her abdomen dries 
up, her skin becomes horny, and forms a sort of shell. It is in this mem- 
branous cradle that the larva of the cochineal insect are born. The cochi- 
neal insect in its wild state lives in the woods. But it can, without difficulty, 
be reared artificially. 
** Every one knows that the little insect, called the cochineal, furnishes, 
when its body has been dried and reduced to powder, a coloring matter of 
a beautiful red, peculiar to itself. This circumstance has saved the cochineal 
from the persecution to which so many other kinds of insects have been devoted 
by the hand of man. In hot climates, in which the cochineal insect de- 
lights, it has been preserved, and is cultivated as an article of commerce. 
This is how the cochineal is reared in Mexico: An open piece of land is 
chosen, protected against the west wind, and of about one or two acres in 
extent. This is surrounded with a hedge of reeds, planted in lines, distant 
from each other about a yard, with cuttings of cactus at most about two 
feet apart. The cactus garden made, the next thing is to establish in it 
cochineals. With this object in view they are sought in the woods, or else 
the females of the cochineal insect, which are gravid, are taken off plants 
which have been sheltered during the winter, and placed in dozens in nests 
made of cocoa-nut fibres, or in little plaited baskets made of the leaves of 
the dwarf palm, and hung on the prickles of the cactus. These are very 
soon covered with young larvw. The only thing now required to be done 
is to shelter them from wind and rain. | 
