KERMES, OR THE SCARLET GRAIN OF COMMERCE. 179 



about the middle or towards the end of May, when each female insect is found 

 reduced to a skin, coveringits brood of eggs to the number of 1,800 or 2,000. 

 The crop of kermes is more or less abundant, according to the mildness 

 or severity of the preceding winter ; when, therefore, there has been little 

 or no frost, and the weather has been generally mild, a good yield is 

 expected, which is not obtained every year, and, as there is no trouble in 

 planting or otherwise attending to the management of the trees, after they 

 are once established, and as no other instruments are required for collecting 

 the kermes than the finger-nails, it may be reasonably supposed that the 

 harvest is an inexpensive one. The kermes are usually collected in 

 the morning, before the dew is off the oaks, as at that time their leaves and 

 prickles inflict less injury to the hands. An experienced person will thus pick 

 two pounds each day. It is stated that the price of the kermes decreases 

 considerably, according to the period in which they are gathered. Those 

 earliest collected are the most valued, and the later ones less, in consequence 

 of being lighter than those first obtained, owing to the young ones having 

 escaped. The merchants who purchase the kermes, immediately steep them 

 in vinegar, and then expose them to the action of heat sufficient to destroy 

 any remaining vitality in the young. This process changes their colour to 

 a bright, red hue, for which they have so long been celebrated. This pro- 

 duction was known to the Phoenicians before the time of Moses, under the 

 name of thola, to the Greeks by the appellation of coccus, and to the Romans 

 by that of Coccus hapliica ; hence, the origin of the word " Coccinati," the per- 

 sons who wore robes that were dyed with the kermes. Previous to the disco- 

 very of America, it was employed to a great extent in dyeing a very rich 

 blood-red, which is of so permanent a nature, that the old tapestries of 

 Brussels and other parts of Flanders, although manufactured more than 

 two centuries ago, have lost none of their richness of tint. Since the 

 settlement of America, it has been supplanted, in a great degree, even 

 in Europe, by the Coccus cacti, or cochineal. The kermes, nevertheless, is 

 still extensively prepared in some parts of Spain, as well as in the East. 

 Bancroft states in his ' Permanent Colours,' that with a solution of tin, 

 which is used with the cochineal, the kermes 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 colour- 

 ing matter as one pound of cochineal, the latter, at its ordinary price, is 

 more economical. At present, it is chiefly used at Tunis, and other parts 

 of the Barbary coast, for dyeing the scarlet skull-caps (fezes) so much used 

 in the Levant. In the department of the Bouches-du-Rhone, one half of the 

 kermes crop is dried. It amounts annually to about sixty quintals or 

 cwts., and is warehoused at Avignon. From the middle of May to the 

 middle of June, the egg cases are collected, and exposed to the vapour of 

 vinegar to prevent incubation. A portion of the eggs is left upon the tree 

 for the maintenance of the brood. The Spanish kermes is preferred to the 

 French, In Seville, they dry the gall-shaped nests of this insect's eggs on 

 mats in the sun ; the dust which arises from stirring it about, is considered 

 the most valuable part, and when mixed with vinegar is called pastel or car- 



