28  Cochineal  Industry  in  Guatemala. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
Jan.,  188d. 
THE  COCHINEAL  INDUSTKY  IN  GUATEMALA. 
The  following  paragraphs,  describing  a  visit  to  a  " cochineal  range" 
in  Guatemala,  are  taken  from  the  Montreal  Daily  Star : — 
"In  this  queer  country  the  raising  of  hemipterous  insects  of  the 
bark-louse  family — especially  the  Coccus  cacti  or  Spanish  cochinilla 
— is  a  profitable,  if  not  a  pleasant,  industry.  In  this  portion  of  Gua- 
temala vast  plantations  are  given  up  entirely  to  the  cultivation  of  the 
" Indian  fig,"  or  nopal,  of  the  genus  Cacti  {Opuntia  cochinillifera), 
upon  which  these  bark-lice  feed. 
"  Senor  Espanosa's  plantation  of  Opuntia  cochinillifera,  which  was 
the  one  we  visited,  includes  nearly  a  thousand  acres,  and  the  modus 
operandi  of  cultivating  the  insect  is  most  curious.  They  require  about 
the  same  care  that  is  ordinarily  bestowed  upon  silk  worms,  and  the 
occupation  is  not  more  disagreeable  among  crawling  bugs  than  wrig- 
gling worms.  Immediately  before  the  annual  time  of  violent  rains, 
great  branches  of  the  nopal,  covered  with  insects,  are  cut  ofi0  and  stored 
in  a  building  erected  for  the  purpose,  to  protect  them  from  the  weather. 
At  the  close  of  the  wet  season,  four  or  five  months  later  (about  the 
middle  of  October),  the  plantations  are  again  stocked  from  these  sup- 
plies, by  suspending  little  nests  made  of  henequin,  maguey,  jute  or  any 
sort  of  woody  fiber,  upon  the  spines  of  the  growing  cacti,  each  nest 
containing  about  a  dozen  females.  Warmed  by  the  tropic  sun,  the 
insects  soon  emerge  from  their  semi-comatose  condition,  and  begin  to 
lay  eggs  with  marvellous  rapidity,  each  female  producing  more  than  a 
thousand  young.  These  spread  over  the  plants  with  marvellous  celer- 
ity, the  young  females  attaching  themselves  to  the  leaves  and  immedi- 
ately swelling  to  incredible  size,  adhering  so  closely  to  the  nopal  as  to 
become  almost  a  part  of  it,  resembling  vegetable  excrescences  rather 
than  animated  creatures. 
"In  this  condition  they  are  gathered  for  cochineal,  none  but  the 
pregnant  females  being  valuable  for  commercial  purposes.  The  males 
are  comparatively  few  in  number — not  more  than  one  to  two  hundred 
and  fifty  females — and  are  of  no  use  for  coloring  purposes ;  but,  as  in 
the  higher  orders  of  existence,  escape  most  of  the  pains  and  perils  of 
life.  While  the  males  are  thus  left  to  disport  themselves  undisturbed, 
the  females  are  picked  olf  with  a  blunt  knife,  collected  into  baskets 
and  killed  by  dipping  into  boiling  water,  or  baking  them  in  a  heated 
oven,  or  on  plates  of  hot  iron.  The  first  crop  is  gathered  about  the 
middle  of  December,  and  subsequently  several  more  of  as  many  sue- 
