OF INSECTS IN GENERAL. 
3 xa 
and an elegant varnilh, which is provided by a certain, 
i'pecies of winged ant. The celebrated purple dye of the 
ancients was the produce of a fmall fpecies of fhell-fifn „ 
and we arc told by Pliny, that the difcovery of its vir- 
tue was occafioned by a dog, who, in eating the filh, had 
dyed his ears with that beautiful colour*. It feetns 
probable that the ancients were capable of communicat- 
ing to their fluffs many beautiful lhades of fcarlet with 
which wc are unacquainted ; and it is not unlikely that 
we have alfo fome rich tints of that colour which they 
wanted. It is certain that our fincll red colours are fur- 
nifned by infedls with which they were unacquainted. 
Cochineal, the extcnlive and profitable ufes of which have 
been long known, is now univerfally allowed to be an 
infect, which is propagated with care, and in vaft num. 
bers, in the kingdom of Mexico. The kermes, or grain 
of fcarlet, which was formerly imagined to be one of the 
galles or excrefcences that are fecn on fhrubs, is now un- 
derftood to be an infedt, which attaches itfelf in that form 
to a fpccies of the oak f. 
The medical ufes of certain infects are far from being 
incoufiderable ; and to tbefe purpofes they have long been 
applied, perhaps more frequently, and with better effcdt, 
than at prefent %. The valuable purpofes to which the 
can- 
* Rcamure, Tome I. p. y. 
■f The quercus coccifcra of Linnceus. The red dye colle&cd from (his 
tree is produced in Africa ; it is not fo blight, but more permanent than 
rochiueid. The csccus yuercus forms galles upon the common oak, which 
are brought from the Levant, and are univerfally ufed in dyeing over Eu- 
rope. We have this plant in Britain, and alfo that of the coccus poloni, 
cus : The infedt which inhabits thefe plants might in all probability 
thrive, if imported into this iflaud. 
1 fjift, Medic, des Anim. par Vanden Bofche, Liv. iv. 
