DIEECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 269 



Other dyeing drugs are afforded by insects, the principal of 

 which are Chermes, the Scarlet Grain of Poland, Cochineal, 

 Lac-lake, and Lac-dye, all of which are furnished by different 

 species of Coccus, 



The first of these, the Coccus Ilicis, found abundantly upon 

 a small species of evergreen oak (^Quercus coccifera), 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 Thola 

 (yi'in), to the Greeks under that of Coccus (Kokxoj), and to the 

 Arabians and Persians under that of Kermes or Alkermes ; 

 whence, as Beckmann has shown, and from the epithet vermi- 

 culatum given to it in the middle ages, when it was ascertained 

 to be the produce of a worm, have sprung the Latin coccineus, 

 the French cramoisi and vermeil, and our crimson and vermilion. 

 It was most probably with this substance that the curtains of 

 the tabernacle (Exod. xxvi. &c.) were dyed deep red (which 

 the word scarlet, as our translators have rendered ny^in, 

 then implied, not the colour now so called, which was not 

 known in James the First's reign when the Bible was trans- 

 lated,) — it was with this that the Grecians and Romans pro- 

 duced their crimson ; and from the same source were derived 

 the imperishable reds of the Brussels and other Flemish 

 tapestries. In short, previous to the discovery of cochineal, 

 this was the material universally used for dyeing the most 

 brilliant red then known ; and though that production of the 

 New World has, in some respects undeservedly^, supplanted 

 it in Europe, where it is little attended to except by the 

 peasantry of the provinces in which it is found, it still con- 

 tinues to be employed in a great part of India and Persia.^ 



The scarlet grain of Poland ( Coccus polonicus) is found on 



1 The colour communicated by Kermes, with alum, the only mordant for- 

 merly employed, is blood red ; but Dr. Bancroft found (i. 404.) that with the 

 solution of tin used with cochineal it 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 colouring matter as one of cochi- 

 neal, the latter at its ordinary price is the cheapest. 



2 Bochart, Hierozoic. ii. 1, iv. c. 27. Beekmann's History of Inventions, 

 Engl. Trans, ii. 171 — 205. Bancroft on permanent Colours, i. 393. See also 

 Parkhurst s Heb. Lexicon under y?n and HJEJ^. 



