302 
DETERMINATIONS OF THE 
Ainslie as his authority for the names. Ainslie in his Materia Medica 
of Hindustani, (1813), p. 91, catalogues two Opuntias as having verna- 
cular names and uses in Southern India, viz., Cactus Ficus-indica, the 
straight-thorned Opuntia and Cactus Tuna, the awl-thorned Opuntia. 
The contrast in the English names must be noted; for in it is the 
strongest evidence that Opuntia Dillenii was the awl-thorned Opuntia 
or '' Cactus Tuna,'’" Opuntia elatior being straight-thorned like 
Opuntia monacantha. 
When Captain Neilson's race of the cochineal insect had 
reached Madras in 1795, and was known from the Bengal ex- 
periments as well as from experiments made by Dr. Andrew Berry to 
grow freely on an Opuntia plentiful in the country side> but not well 
or not better on their imported Opuntias, the Collectors of Revenue of 
that Presidency were each supplied with a small quantity of the insect 
and directed, in orders dated 29th March 1796, to exert themselves in 
the most strenuous manner to get it propagated, and for its maintenance 
they were to enclose spots of ground fifty or sixty feet square here and 
there in convenient villages. The Opuntia in the orders is described as 
the Naga kulli or Naga dalli kulli to be found in clumps and in hedges 
of native gardens. Next they were instructed to offer a price 
for the produce to induce villagers to collect and prepare the insects. 
By their collecting, 4,393 lbs. were sent to London in 1 797, and 36,388 
lbs. in 1798 (H. G. Prinsep in Transactions, Agri-Horticultural Society 
of India, vi, 1839, Appendix, p, 89). The spread of .the insect was 
thus most rapid,— an observation which to us is important as demon- 
strating the abundance of the Opuntia it fed on, at any rate in the 
country near Madras. 
Buchanan-Hamilton tells us in his Journey from Madras through 
Mysore (1807), that in 1800 and 1801 the hedges of that part of the 
country were chiefly made of Euphorbia Tirucaili, Linn., and Euphorbia 
Antiquorum, Linn. ; but it appears that at intervals there occurred 
hedges of Opuntias. On pp. 399 —400 he states that when on May 13th, 
1801, he reached Beiluru, about forty miles north of Seringapatam, he 
found the cochineal collecting in progress. Two men were there, agents 
of an officer in Arcot, who had apparently brought the cochineal insect 
with them, and buying the right of putting it on to the hedges of the 
gardens, were then busy collecting the crop that had resulted. The 
Opuntias were dying from the attack of the insects ; and when all the 
hedges were dead, the two men said that they would carry two men^s 
