316 DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 



blue galls, being the produce of the first gathering before 

 the flv has issued from the gall. It will not be uninter- 

 esting to you to know, that from these when bruised 

 may occasionally be obtained perfect specimens of the 

 insect, one of which I lately procured in this way. The 

 galls which have escaped the first searches, and from 

 most of which the fly has emerged, are called white galls, 

 and are of a very inferior quality, containing less of the 

 astringent principle than the blue galls in the proportion 

 of two to three*. The white and blue galls are usually 

 imported mixed in about equal proportions, and are then 

 called galls in sorts. If no substitute equal to galls as a 

 constituent part of ink has been discovered, the same may 

 be said of these productions as one of the most impor- 

 tant of our dyeing materials constantly employed in dye- 

 ing black. It is true that this colour may be communi- 

 cated without galls, but not at once so cheaply and effec- 

 tually, as is found by their continued large consumption 

 notwithstanding all the improvements in the art of dye- 

 ing. Other dyeing drugs are afforded by insects, the 

 principal of which are Kermes, the Scarlet Grain of Po- 

 land, Cochineal, Lac-lake, and Lac-dye, all of which arc 

 furnished by different species of Coccus. 



The first of these, the Coccus Tikis, L., found abun- 

 dantly upon a small species of evergreen oak {Quercus 

 cocci/era, L.) common in the south of France, and many 

 other parts of the world, has been employed to impart 

 a blood red or crimson dye to cloth from the earliest 

 ages, and was known to the Phoenicians before the time 

 of Moses under the name of Tola or TJwla (J?Vin), to 

 3 Olivier' s Travel/ in Egypt, &c, ii. 6 \, 



