278 



Marvels of the Universe 



THE COCHINEAL INSECT 



BY HAROLD BASTIX. 



The Cochineal is one of the very few insects that are directly serviceable to mankind ; and nowadays 

 the beautiful innoxious colour for which it is famed is rapidly falhng into disuse, having been largely' 

 displaced commercially by the derivatives of aniline. The fact remains, however, that for centuries 

 man depended for this dye, and for several of the pigments, such as carmine, used by artists, upon 

 the product of a tiny creature closely allied to certain of the worst pests with which' the modern 

 agriculturalist has had to combat. For the Cochineal Insect is a near relative of the dreaded 

 " fluted cushion scale," which, in a single year, reduced the Californian orange crop from eight 



thousand to six hundred car- 

 loads by its ravages. Nor is it 

 far removed in affinity from 

 the " green-fly " which infests 

 our roses and broad beans. 



The Cochineal Insect feeds, 

 by sucking the sap through 

 its delicate, tubular mouth, 

 upon several kinds of cactus 

 of the " prickly-pear " group. 

 Its favourite food - plant is 

 known as Nopal. A native of 

 Mexico, it was introduced into 

 the Eastern hemisphere, after 

 several unsuccessful attempts, 

 about the year 1827, and was 

 established with more or less 

 success on the borders of the 

 Mediterranean. 



It was in the Canary Islands, 

 however, that its acclimatiza- 

 tion was most successfully 

 effected, and here it was for- 

 merlj' the object of an exten- 

 sive commerce. Forty years ago the imports of Cochineal from the Canaries to Britain were valued 

 at over £800,000. 



The life-story of the Cochineal Insect is very remarkable. The young, when first hatched from 

 the egg, are mite-like creatures, with six legs, which move rapidly about upon the stems of the 

 cactus until they find suitable anchorages for their sucking-trunks. Then each one settles down 

 to a sedentary existence and subsists upon the sap. 



The female Cochineal Insect develops backwards — if I ma\' be allowed this hibernicism. 

 It begins life, as we have seen, as an active, six-legged creature ; it ends as an inert grub, 

 so degraded in form that most of its external organs and appendages cannot be distinguished. 

 But when once it has got its sucker through the skin of the cactus into the juicy tissues 

 beneath, the sucker is never witlidra\Mi. The insect enjoys a continuous feast, for which 

 it pays with loss of the power of movement. The male, on the contrary, undergoes a com- 

 plete metamorphosis, and eventually attains to the dignity of two delicate wings, and the 



THE COCHINEAL INSECT. 



1 he male of the Cochineal Insect when mature is provided 

 but he is short lived and has little opportunity for usins them, 

 enlarged: in actual size the insect is little larger than the comrr 



IBii J. Tekienhuro. 



ivith a pair of wings. 

 The figure is greatly 

 on Green-fly. 



