SECTION VI. Cochineal, Kermes, and Gum-Lac Insects. Coccus. LINN. THESE all belong to one common genus, which exhibits various peculiarities, but particularly that of having the males possessed of four wings, and the females apterous or wingless; the males, more. over, being much smaller than the females. 1. Cochineal Insect. Coccus cacti.-LINN. This is the most important of the whole fraternity, and is celebrated for the beauty of the colour which it yields, when properly pre pared. This species is a native of South America, and is pecu. liarly cultivated in the country of Mexico, where it feeds on the plants called cactus cochenillifer, and cactus opuntia. The female officinal cochineal insect, in its full-grown pregnant or torpid state, swells or grows to such a size, in proportion to that of its first or creeping state, that the legs, antennæ, and proboscis are so small, with respect to the rest of the animal, as hardly to be discovered except by a good eye, or by the assistance of a glass; so that on a general view it bears as great a resemblance to a seed or berry as to an animal. This was the cause of that difference in opinion which long subsisted between several authors; some maintaining that cochineal was a berry, while others contended that it was an insect. We must also here advert to another error; viz. that the cochineal was a species of coccinella or lady-bird. This seems to have taken its rise from specimens of the coccinella cacti of Linnæus being sometimes accidentally intermixed with the cochineal in gathering and drying. When the female cochineal-insect is arrived at its full size, it fixes itself to the surface of the leaf, and envelopes itself in a white cottony matter, which it is supposed to spin or draw through its proboscis in a continued double filament, it being observed that two filaments are frequently seen proceeding from the tip of the proboscis in the full-grown insect. The male is a small and rather slender dipterous fly, about the size of a flea, with jointed antennæ and large white wings in proportion to the body, which is of a red colour, with two long fila. ments proceeding from the tail. It is an active and lively animal, and is dispersed in small numbers among the females, in the pro. portion, according to Mr. Ellis, in the Philosophical Transactions, of about one male to a hundred and fifty, or even two hundred females. When the female insect has discharged all its eggs, it becomes a mere husk, and dies; so that great care is taken to kill the insects before that time, to prevent the young from escaping, and thus dis. appointing the proprietor of the beautiful colour. The insects when picked or brushed off the plants, are said to be first killed either by the fumes of heated vinegar, or by smoke, and then dried, in which state they are imported into Europe; and it is said that the Spanish government is annually more enriched by the profit of the cochineal trade than by the produce of all its gold mines. It may perhaps be almost unnecessary to add, that, exclusive of the general or large scale in which cochineal is used by the dyers, the fine colour so much esteemed in painting, and known by the name of carmine, is no other than a preparation from the same substance, and is unquestionably the most beautiful of all the pictorial reds. It is also used, when properly mixed with hair-pow. der, powdered talc, &c. in that innocent cosmetic, so much used by the ladies, and popularly known by the French term rouge. 2. Kermes, or Scarlet-dye Insect. Coccus ilicis.--LINN. The female of this species adheres in its advanced or pregnant state to the shoots of the quercus coccifera (Ilex aculeata cocciglandifera. C. Bauh. pin.), under the form of smooth reddish-brown or blackish powdery grains or balls, of the size of small peas. The tree or shrub grows plentifully in many parts of France, Spain, Greece, and the islands of the Archipelago. The cocci are found adhering in groupes of five, six, or more together, or pretty near each other. They are gathered for the purpose of commerce by the country people. Before the discovery of America, the coccus ilicis or kermes, as it was then termed, was the most valuable substance for dyeing scarlet, and was collected in great quantity for that purpose. According to the mildness or severity of the winter, the harvest of the kermes is said to be more or less plentiful; and it is no very uncommon thing to have two harvests in a year. Before dying, the berries or dormant insects are steeped in vinegar, to prevent the exclusion of the young animals by thus killing the parents. They are then spread or thrown on linen, and as long as they continue moist are turned twice or thrice a day, to prevent their heating, and are afterwards put up for sale. Woollen cloth dyed with kermes was called scarlet in grain; the animal having been popularly considered as a grain: the colour is a durable, deep-red, called ox-blood colour, much inferior to the brilliancy of cochineal scarlet, but far more lasting, and less liable to stain. Mons. Hellot, in his Art de Tendre, observes that the figured cloths to be seen in the old tapestries of Brussels and the other manufactures of Flanders, which have scarcely lost any thing of their liveliness by standing for two hundred years, were all dyed with this ingredient. 3. Gum-lac Insect. Coccus ficus.-LINN. The body of this insect is of a red colour, the antennas branched, the tail two-bristled. It is found on the ficus religiosa and indica (the banian tree), and produces the gum-lac of the shops. It is about the end of January that the female fixes herself, in conse. quence of pregnancy, to the succulent extremities of the young branches, and becomes torpid. She now secretes, apparently from the edges of the antennas, limbs, and setæ of the tail, a spissid, pellucid liquor by which it becomes enveloped; and it is this secretion which forms the gum-lac: yet as a gum very nearly resembling it is ob. tained from the plaso, and various other trees on which this insect fixes, by making incisions through their bark, it should seem that the secreted gum is an unchanged vegetable, rather than an animal production. It is in the cells of this viscid matter that the female deposits her eggs. In March the different cells are completely formed; in November we find about twenty or thirty oval eggs, or rather young grubs occupying them, and apparently supported by the fluid they contain. When this fluid is all expended, the young grubs pierce a hole through the back of the mother, and walk off one by one, leaving their exuviæ behind, which is that white, membranous substance found in the empty cells of the stick. lac. The lac is of a deep red colour, and is the colouring material employed in the best sealing-wax, as well as in a variety of other articles of common use. [Shaw. Pantolog, Phil. Trans. SECTION VII. Lady-bird. Lady-cow. Coccinella septem-punctata.-LINN. Or the coccinella genus there are not less than a hundred and sixty-four known and described species, feeding chiefly on plant. lice, particularly the vine fretter or aptis, and hence highly ser. viceable in clearing vegetables of the myriads with which they are often infested. It is the seven-dotted coccinella that passes under the familiar name of lady-bird, or lady-cow. The shells are red, the seven dots black. It inhabits Europe generally, and is said, like several other insects of the order coleoptera, to have the sin. gular property of giving immediate and effectual relief in the most violent paroxysms of tooth-ach, by rubbing them between the thumb and finger to the affected tooth. It proceeds from a larva of disagreeable appearance, of a lengthened oval shape, with a sharpened tail of a black colour, varied with red and white specks, and of a rough surface: it resides on various plants, and changes to a short, blackish, oval chrysalis, spotted with red, which is meta morphosed to this beautiful insect in the month of May and June. [Turton. Pantolog. SECTION VIII. Butterfly. Papilio. LINN. THIS curious insect is distinguished by its antennas growing thicker towards the tip, and generally ending in a knob; wings, when sitting, erect, the edges meeting together over the abdomen: flies in the day time. Very nearly twelve hundred species scat. tered over the globe; of which nearly seventy are natives of our own country. This genus is so extremely voluminous, that it has been judged necessary by every entomologist to divide it into sections and sub. sections. Fabricius has, upon this subject, been not only more minute, but more fortunate than Linnæus. We shall therefore copy the arrangement of both. Linnæan Division. A. Equites. Upper wings longer from the posterior angle to the tip than to the base; antennas often filiform. a. Trojans. Generally black; with sanguineous spots on the breast. :. Greeks. Breast without sanguineous spots; an ocellate spot at the angle of the tail. + Wings without bands. ++ Wings with bands. B. Heleconii. Wings narrow, entire, often naked or semitrans. parent; the upper ones oblong, the lower ones very short. C. Danai. Wings very entire. a. Candidi. Whitish wings. C. D. Nymphales. Wings denticulate. Gemmati. Wings with ocellate spots. + On all the wings. ++ On the upper wings only. +++ On the lower wings only. C. Phalerati. Wings without ocellate spots. . Urbicole. Wings mostly with transparent spots. Fubrician Division. I. Papilio. Feelers reflected; tongue exserted, spiral; antennas thicker towards the tip. A. Upper wings longer from the posterior angle to the tip than to 1 the base. a. Equites. Lower wings cut to admit a free motion of the ab domen. |