270 DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 



the roots of the perennial knawel, (^Scleranthus perennis, a 

 scarce plant in this country, but abundant in the neighbour- 

 hood of Elvedon in Suffolk,) and was at one time collected in 

 large quantities for dyeing red in the Ukraine, Lithuania, &c. 

 But though still employed by the Turks and Armenians for 

 dyeing wool, silk, and hair, as well as for staining the nails of 

 women's fingers, it is now rarely used in Europe except by 

 the Polish peasantry. A similar neglect has attended the 

 Coccus found on the roots of Poterium Sanguisorba} , which 

 was used by the Moors for dyeing silk and wool a rose 

 colour ; and the Coccus Uva-ursi, which with alum affords a 

 crimson dye.^ 



Cochineal, the Coccus cacti, is doubtless the most valuable 

 product for which the dyer is indebted to insects, and, with 

 the exception perhaps of indigo, the most important of dyeing 

 materials. Though the Spaniards found it employed by the 

 natives of Mexico, where alone it is cultivated, on their 

 arrival in that country in 1518, its true nature was not accu- 

 rately ascertained for nearly two centuries afterwards. Acosta, 

 indeed, as early as 1530, and Herrara and Hernandez subse- 

 quently, had stated it to be an insect : but, led apparently by 

 its external appearance, notwithstanding the conjectures of 

 Lister and assertions of Pere Plumier to the contrary, it was 

 believed by Europeans in general to be the seed of a plant, 

 until Hartsoeker in 1694, Leeuwenhoek and De la Hire in 

 1704, and Geoffroy, ten years later, by dissections and 

 microscopical observations, incontrovertibly proved its real 

 origin.^ 



This insect, which comes to us in the form of a reddish 

 shrivelled grain covered with a white powder or bloom, feeds 

 on a particular kind of Indian fig, called in Mexico, where 

 alone cochineal is produced in any quantity. Nopal, which 

 has always been supposed to be the Cactus cochinilifer, but 

 according to Humboldt is unquestionably a distinct species, 

 which bears fruit internally white. 



Cochineal is chiefly cultivated in the Intendency of Oaxaca; 

 and some plantations contain 50,000 or 60,000 nopals in 



I Rai. Hist. Plant, i. 401 . 



3 Bancroft, i. 413. Reaum. iv. 88. 



2 Bancroft, i. 401. 



