DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 217 



versally used for dyeing the most brilliant red then known ; and though 

 that production of the New World has, in some respects undeservedly^, 

 supplanted it in Europe, where it is little attended to except by the peas- 

 antry of the provinces in which it is found, it still continues to be employ- 

 ed in a great part of India and Persia.^ 



The scarlet grain of Poland (Coccus polonicus) is found on the roots 

 of the perennial knawel, (^Scleranthus percnnis, a scarce plant in this 

 country, but abundant in the neighborhood of Elvedon in Suffolk,) and 

 was at one time collected in large quantities for dyeing red in the Ukraine, 

 Lithuania, &c. But though still employed by the Turks and Armenians 

 for dyeing wool, silk, and hair, as well as for staining the nails of women's 

 fingers, it is now rarely used in Europe except by the Polish peasantry. 

 A similar neglect has attended the Coccus found on the roots of Foteriiim 

 Sanguisorba^, which was used by the Moors for dyeing silk and wool a 

 rose color ; and the Coccus Uva-ursi, which with alum affords a crimson dye.'* 



Cochineal, the Coccus cacti, is doubtless the most valuable product for 

 which the dyer is indebted to insects, and, with the exception perhaps of 

 indigo, the most important of dyeing materials. Though the Spaniards 

 found it employed by the natives of Mexico, where alone it is cultivated, 

 on their arrival in that country in 1518, its true nature was not accurately 

 ascertained for nearly two centuries afterwards. Acosta, indeed, as early 

 as 1530, and Herrara and Hernandez subsequently, had stated it to be an 

 insect: but, led apparently by its external appearance, notwithstanding 

 the conjectures of Lister and assertions of Pere Plumier to the contrary, 

 it was believed by Europeans in general to be the seed of a plant, until 

 Hartsoeker in 1694, Leeuwenhoek and De la Hire in 1704, and Geoffroy, 

 ten years later, by dissections and microscopal observations, incontroverti- 

 bly proved its real origin.^ 



This insect, which comes to us in the form of a reddish shrivelled grain 

 covered with a white powder or bloom, feeds on a particular kind of In- 

 dian fig, called in Mexico, where alone cochineal is produced in any 

 quantity. Nopal, which has always been supposed to be the Cactus cochin- 

 ilifer, but according to Humboldt is unquestionably a distinct species, 

 which bears fruit internally white. 



Cochineal is chiefly cultivated in the Intendency of Oaxaca ; and some 

 plantations contain 50,000 or 60,000 nopals in lines, each being kept 

 about four feet high for more easy access in collecting the dye. The 

 cultivators prefer the most prickly varieties of the plant, as affording pro- 

 tection to the cochineal from insects ; to prevent which from depositing 

 their eggs in the flower or fruit, both are carefully cut off. The greatest 

 quantity, however, of cochineal employed in commerce, is produced in 

 small nopaleries belonging to Indians of extreme poverty, called Napa- 



' The color communicated by Kerines, with alum, the only mordant formerly employed, 

 is blood red ; but Dr. Bancroft found (i. 404.) that with the solution of tin used with cochi- 

 neal it is capable of imparting a scarlet quite as brilliant as that dye, and perhaps more 

 permanent. At the same time, however, as ten or twelve pounds contain only as much 

 coloring matter as one of cochineal, the latter at its ordinary price is the cheapest. 



2 Bochart, Hierozoic. ii. 1. iv. c. 27. Beckmann's History of Inventions, Engl. Trans, ii. 

 171 — 205. Bancroft on Permanent Colors, i. 393. See also Parkhursl's Heh. Lexicon 

 under y'^j-i and n3B- 



3 Rai. Hist. Plant, i. 401. * Bancroft, i. 401. 

 6 Bancroft, i. 413. Reaum. iv, 88. 



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