15 



host plant for it. The insect introduced not 

 being, as was afterwards discovered, the Precious 

 Cochineal {Grana fina), but *he wild one {Grana 

 sylvestre), the correctness of his assumption was 

 established by future happenings, but this would 

 not have been the case had the more valuable 

 insect been introduced as intended.* 



As it is a material contribution to our know- 

 ledge of the history of this Wild Cochineal In- 

 sect, and its action on destroying Prickly-pear, 

 the work of this East India Company's officer 

 may be here described. 



Dr. James Anderson recorded, in 1787, t 

 that an Opuntia grew wild everywhere in the 

 neighbourhood of Madras, possessing, amongst 

 others, the following characters :— The petals 

 much longer than the stigmas, and when closed 

 entirely covering them; J they were yellow, 

 streaked with red; the fruit never red-coloured, 

 nor has it red juice. § The prickles on the stem 

 joints perfectly straight.|| In addition to the 

 Madras district he, mentions its occurrence as a 

 native plant at Chingleput, Tanjore, Chiniapa- 

 paigpollam,|| also at Coimbatore and at Pondi- 

 cherry, where the gardens were enclosed with it.j] 

 He stated that it bore the vernacular name Naga- 

 kulli, and the technical one Cactus opuntia. 



This plant he cultivated at his Prickly-pear 

 Farm at Madras, since he had (he wrote, 29th 

 May, 1787) " not yet been able to find the Cactus 

 cochinilifer."*^* Dr. A. Berry, who had charge 

 of this " Nopalry" under Dr. Anderson, wrote 

 regarding ' ' the country Opuntia that wanted 

 red juice": that he had planted 1,000 to have 

 something in readiness to receive foreign insects 

 till such time as the plants that were better 

 recommended as host plants for the cochineal 

 should be brought to perfectionft (the true 

 Opuntia cochinilifer having been meanwhile 

 received from an exotic source). 



In addition to cultivating this Opuntia at 

 Madras, Dr. Anderson sent it to Masulipatam, 

 MadipuUam, Ganjam, Nellore and Samateota, 

 Vizagapatam, Samal-Cotah, and Calcutta.jj 

 He also stated that he expected to get plan- 

 tations made of it in more sheltered situations 

 amongst the great ranges of hills at Vellore, 

 Santgurry, and Ambor.§§ From this we may 

 assume that he sent the plant to these also, and 



• The publications in which Dr. Anderson describes 

 this long-sustained work have been overlooked by all 

 subsequent writers, although mentioned by Hooykaas 

 (J.C.) and du Rieu (Dr. W.N.) in their " Repetorium of de 

 Koloniale Litteratuur," Vol. II., Amsterdam, 1877 (s.v 

 " Cocohenille," op. cit. pp. 449-451). As evidently they 

 are now scarce, their full titles may be cited : — 



(1) Letters to Sir Joseph Banks, Baronet, President 



of the Royal Society on the Subject of Cochineal 

 Insects discovered in Madras. Madras, Charles 

 Ford, 1788 (pp. 1-36, Plate 1, Nopalry), 



(2) Letters on Cochineal (continued) by Jamea 



Anderson, M.D. Madras, Charles Ford, 1789. 



(3) The conclusion of Letters on Cochineal, by James 



Anderson, M.D. (pp. 1-21). Madras, Charles 

 Ford, 1790. 



t Letters, 1788, p. 8. 



t Op, cit., p. 10. 



§ " Letters," 1789, p. 24. 



II " Letters," 1788, p. 8. 

 ,i[ Op. cit., p. 9. 

 *♦ "Letters," 1788, p. 11. 

 tt " Letters," 1789, p. 24. 

 XX " Letters," passim 1788 to 1790. 

 §§ " Letters," 1788, p., 11. 



perhaps even prior to the date of the letter in 

 which this intention is mentioned — i.e., July, 



1787. 



Evidently in reference to this and other 

 species of Prickly-pear sent out by Dr. Ander- 

 son, the East India Company, as early as 1799, 

 granted a special remission of dues with respect 

 to land on which it was cultivated : — ' ' One-six- 

 teenth of the ordinary rate of towns will be re- 

 quired for lands growing mulberry, the Mauri- 

 tius Cotton, the Opuntia."* 



The introduced insect evidently found con- 

 genial conditions, as we are informed by Prinsep 

 (Burkill, 1911, p. 302) that large quantities of 

 prepared cochineal were exported in 1797 and 

 1798. The decline in value of cochineal and the 

 fact that the Grana sylvestre had only one-fourth 

 of the colouring properties of the true coehiaeal 

 or Grana fina, caused the industry to be of less 

 importance and to finally disappear. The insect, 

 however, continued to spread and to exercise a 

 destructive influence on its host plant. Dr. W. 

 Ainsliet stating that such quantities of the 

 Sylvestre appeared on the Coromandel coast that 

 it almost rendered extinct one of four kinds of 

 Opuntia growing there at the time. A similar 

 event occurred about the years 1859-1863 ia the 

 southern part of the Bombay Presidency about 

 Belgaum and elsewhere. 



Mr. Burkill (1911, p. 301) mentions an 

 interesting account of such Prickly-pear ex- 

 termination on the part of this insect, iu 

 Southern India, given by Wilks ia his 

 " Historical Sketches of the South of India," 

 Vol. III., 1817, p. 84. Wilks referred to the 

 former existence at Poongur, on the banks of the 

 Caveri, of fences, &c., composed of a Prickly- 

 pear, the straight-thorned Opuntia,J sufficiently 

 grown to cause the entanglement of Tippoo Sul- 

 tan's horse there on September, 1790; but that 

 afterwards, when its removal was contemplated, 

 it was found that "the Sylvestre cochineal intro- 

 duced into Coromandel, shortly after the order 

 had been given, had devoured not only the 

 ' leaves ' but the root of the plant with such 

 avidity as nearly to have terminated its exist- 

 ence in the south-eastern provinces," and not 

 alone in these fences. 



Moreover, when the Wild Cochineal Insect 

 was distributed the plant was already estab- 

 lished, and it not only multiplied but did so to 

 the extent of killing its host plant. Thus Dr. 

 Francis Buchanan, another officer in the Medi- 

 cal Service of the East India Company, writing 

 in 1807 of the new cochineal-raising industry, 

 in which " the Cochineal of the bad kind lately 

 introduced" and the "Cactus — the aboriginal 

 of the country " figured, states, with reference 

 to operations at Bailura, on the Caveri River, 

 and about 20 miles north of the small State of 

 Coorg, that " the young insects .... put upon 

 the new hedges, will have in six months in- 

 creased so that they may begin to be collected, 

 and that, after a year more has elapsed,^ the 

 whole plants are consumed." Also that, " so 



* Vid. Circular issued by Col. A. Reid, Salem 

 embodying a Kaulnama or Proclamation dated 15th Nov. . 

 1796, in the name of the Kudds, Vastagans, and other 

 Ryots of the district of Tirupatur— quoted by H. le Fanu, 

 " Manual of the Salem Districts," I., p. 222. Madras, 

 1883. 



t W. Ainslie. Materia Medica of Hindustan, 1813. 



X Cactus ficus'indica, Lin., AinsUe (i.e., O. monacantha). 



1) 



