129 



As regards Opuntia Dillenii the late Sir William Hooker in 1879 (c/. 

 Flora of British India, III., p. 657-8) has stated that it was the kind in India 

 upon which cochineal formerly brought from. America multiplied abundantly ; 

 but this was an error into which he had fallen through identifying the species 

 named with Roxburgh's Cactus indicus as Wight had done forty-five years earlier. 



In the matter of our more prevalent pest pear (0. inermis, DC), however, 

 there are groundsfor concluding that a wild cochineal insect may still exist in the 

 " Black Republic " of the West Indies, although we failed to discover it on 

 visiting Barahona, near where it unites with San Domingo ; also, that it may 

 attack not only it but also 0. Dillenii, Haw. 



We have it on record that de Menonville, on his return to Port au Prince, 

 Hayti, in 1777, from Guaxaca, Mexico, brought with him not only the Qrana 

 fina (Coccus cacti) or the precious cochineal insect, but also a wild cochineal 

 insect or Grana sylvestre ; also that whereas the former insect shortly after 

 this died out, the latter persisted and multiplied, and did so to such an extent, 

 that shortly after this enterprising man had died {Oh. 1780), a large amount of 

 this Sylvestre was sent from Hayti to France, especially during the years 

 1787-88 (Anon : Culture of the Cochineal, Trans. Agr. and Hort. Soc, India^ 

 VI., 1839. Appendix, p. 17). 



Moreover, de Menonville stated that at the time when this importation 

 was made a wild cochineal insect, or Sylvestre, already occurred on Cactus at 

 Hayti, and this he also pronounced to be the same as that which he had brought 

 with him. 



Some years subsequent to this the French Marine in Paris — the official 

 body that had exploited this Hayti cochineal business — decided to introduce 

 the Wild Cochineal to the West African French possession, Senegal. 



This introduction was accomplished in 1825, and Mons. Perottet, the 

 Agricultural Botanist of the French Government, who has incidentally men- 

 tioned this in a pamphlet detailing methods for freeing the Sylvestre Cochineal 

 from its downy covering (Annales Maritimes— March, AprU, 1834, Paris), adds 

 that the insects, derived from the French Antilles {i.e., Hayti), were attached 

 to specie^ of Cactus inermis, DC. Perrotet also mentions that it greatly prefers 

 this kind, which he names the "Spanish Raquette" ; but that it also lives on a 

 second prickly-pear species which he refers to as the " Thorny Raquette" (the 

 Indian Fig of San Domingo), or the Opuntia tuna of botanists. 



Indeed, after its transference to Senegal it had " increased so much that 

 the branches (of Opuntia inermis) became quite white at the end of a few months, 

 and bent by degrees under the weight of their numerous parasites." With 

 regard to the living insect itself he states that it is covered with a thick, ex- 

 tremely tenacious down. 



With regard to the identification of its host-plants, Perottet would no 

 doubt defer in this matter to his compatriot and contemporary, P. De CandoUe. 

 The one to which it was less partial was doubtless Op^tia Dillemi, Hawortti, 

 which de Menonville (17S7) thus refers to :-" Le tuna de DiUenms : c est celle 

 que les colons de Saint Dominique appele ' raquette de bords du mer. 



That the other is De CandoUe's Opuntia inermis, and our pest species, 

 will also appear from Perottet's description of it. After mentionmg that the 

 " long hard and pointed thorns which, covering Opuntia tuna, do not adimt of 

 touching it without cruelly injuring the hand," he adds : ' ^^is la ter is entirely 

 devoid of these organs, but is provided with sharp silky bristles (glochidia) 

 united in numerous clusters, which are excessively troublesome because they 

 insinuate themselves into the skin with great ease {Iransl.). 



