DETERMINATIONS OF THE 
S04 
until tlie political troubles of the French Revolution caused their loss (see 
the Botanical Magazine^ under plate "74ii). In his Traite de la 
culture dll published posthumously in 1787^ p. 284, Thierry de 
Menonville says that the wild cochineal would grow on the Nopal 
of Castille, on the true Nopal of the gardens of Mexico, on the Spanish 
raquette, on Nopal Sylvester, on the Opuntia of Campeche, on Pereschia 
and on the Tuna of the sea shore, growing best on the first and worst 
on the last ; but it was inconvenient on account of the many thorns to 
use Nopal Sylvester, Pereschia and the Tuna of the sea shore for it. 
The fine cochineal would grow well on the Nopal of Castille, the 
Opuntia of Campeche, and on the true Nopal of the gardens of Mexico, 
which three had been imported into Saint Domingo from Mexico. 
The Nepal of Castille, the true Nopal of Mexican gardens, the Spanish 
raquette and the Opuntia of Campeche were plants comparatively 
thornless. 
India possessed in cultivation, at the time of which 1 am writing, one 
thornless Nopal, the Kew Cactus of the correspondence of those years, 
Linmeus^ Cactus cochinelifera^ afterwards thought by Sir William 
Hooker to be the Opuntia of Campeche [see the Botanical Magazine, 
(1827), under plate 2742]. Did Rottler identify Opuntia rnonacantha 
with Nopal Sylvester ? 
In 1807 the Board of Revenue, Madras, endorsed a suggestion that 
as the British Government had got possession of certain Spanish parts 
of South America, a reward should be offered for the bringing of the 
cultivated cochineal insect to India, via the* Cape : and w^e learn from 
the record of this transaction that a Mr. William Webb had a nopalry 
containing in it a few roots of the Kew nopal,^'' i,e,, of Opuntia 
cockinelifera. 
The expression and the context suggest that the Kew nopal, in spite 
of two thousand plants possessed by Drs. Anderson and Berry, had 
become rare ten years later. 
In 1821 and again in 1822 G. A, Prinsep brought to Bombay, via 
Chelsea, cochineal insects from Campeche : it is not recorded on what 
Opuntia, but 0, cochinelifera is probable (see Trans. Agri,-llort. Soc. 
India, vi, 1839, Appendix, p. 30). 
Lord Auckland again in 183G introduced Opuntia cochinelifera 
f rom Kew, teste Walllch^s Manuscript Catalogue of the Botanic Garden 
ai Shibpur, Calcutta. 
It is said that in 1820 Don Ildefonsa Ruez del Res imported the 
grana flna insect into Cadiz, Spain, where it was carefully cultivated by 
