i84 DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 
cochineal, which, being thus less subject to the adulterations so often 
pmetied by the Indians, bears a higher price both in America and 
urope. 
The quantity annually exported from South America was said by Hum- 
boldt to be at the time he wrote 32,000 arrobas, there worth 500,040/. 
sterling? ;—a vast amount to arise from so small an insect, and well cal- 
culated to show us the absurdity of despising any animals on account of 
their minuteness. So important was the acquisition of this insect re- 
garded, that the Court of Directors of the East India Company formerly 
offered a reward of 6000/. to any one who should introduce it into India, 
where hitherto the Company had only succeeded in procuring from Brazil 
the wild kind producing the sylvestre cochineal, which is of very inferior 
value. The true cochineal insect and the Cactus on which it feeds are 
said to have been of late years successfully introduced into Spain and the 
new French colony of Algiers, and now exist both in the stores of the 
Snndin des Plantes at Paris, and in those of King Leopold at Clare- 
mont. 
Lac is the produce of an insect formerly supposed to be a kind of ant 
or bee*, but now ascertained to be a species of Coccus; and it is col- 
lected from various trees in India, where it is found so abundantly, that, 
were the consumption ten times greater than it is, it could be readily 
supplied. This substance is made use of in that country in the manu- 
facture of beads, rings, and other female ornaments. Mixed with sand, it 
forms grindstones ; and added to lamp or ivory black, being first dissolved 
in water with the addition of a little borax, it composes an ink not easily 
acted upon when dry by damp or water. In this country, where it is dis- 
tinguished by the names stick-/ac, when in its native state, unseparated 
from the twigs to which it adheres; seed-lac, when separated, pounded, 
and the greater part of the colouring matter extracted by water; /ump-lac, 
when melted and made into cakes ; and shel/-/ac, when strained and formed 
into transparent lamin; it has hitherto been chiefly employed in the 
composition of varnishes, japanned ware, and sealing-wax : but for several 
years past it has been applied to a still more important purpose, originally 
suggested by Dr. Roxburgh—that of a substitute for cochineal in dyeing 
scarlet. The first preparations from it with this view were made in con- 
sequence of a hint from Dr. Bancroft, and large quantities of a substance 
termed /ac-lake, consisting of the colouring matter of stick-lac precipitated 
from an alkaline lixivium by alum, were manufactured at Calcutta and sent 
to this country, where at first the consumption was so considerable, that 
in the three years previous to 1810, Dr. Bancroft states that: the sales of 
it at the India House equalled in point of colouring matter half a million 
of pounds weight of cochineal. More recently, however, a new pre- 
ae of lac colour, under the name of /ac-dye, has been imported from 
ndia, which has been substituted for the lac-lake, and with such ac- 
vantage, that the East India Company are said to have saved in a few 
months 14,000/, in the purchase of scarlet cloths dyed with this colour 
1 Humboldt’s Political Lssay on New Spain, iii. 72—79. 
2 Tbid. iii. 64.— Dr. Bancroft estimated the annual consumption of cochineal in 
Great Britain at about 750 bags, or 150,000 lbs. ; worth 875,000/ 
5 Trans. Ent . Soc. Lond. iii. proc. ix. 4 Lesser, L. ii. 165. 
