Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IV.djvu/794

 778 COCHINEAL country, who is assisted by a council of which the commander of the French forces and an official corresponding to the American secre- tary of the interior are the chief members. The affairs of the provinces are managed by inspecteurs des affaires indigenes, under the last named officer; but with the local and municipal governments the French have inter- fered but little. The governor's residence is at Saigon, which has been greatly improved, and raised to a port and naval station of much importance. See Aubaret's Histoire de la Basse- Cochinchine (P&r'&, 1867); Taillefer's La Cochinchine, ce qu'elle est, ce qu'elle sera (Peri- gueux, 1865) ; Lemire's Cochinchine francaise et royaume de Cambodge (Paris, 1869). COCHINEAL (coccus cacti ; Span, cochinilla), an insect used as a dye. Other species of the same genus of hemipterous insects, of the bark- louse family, have been used from the remotest periods to afford the material of the brilliant 1 Cochineal Insects on branch of Cactus. 2. Female Insect. 8. Male Insect. scarlet and crimson dyes of the ancient He- brews, Egyptians, and the people of other east- ern nations. The coccus ilicis is one of these, still found in the Levant, Greece, Palestine, Per- sia, &c., on a species of oak, in which countries it is employed as it was before the time of Mo- ses. It has long been known by the name of kermes, which came from the Arabs, and sig- nifies red dye. Beckmann conceives that the ancients obtained a finer color from these insects than from Tyrian purples, and its introduction among the Romans caused the use of the latter to be abandoned. The name cochineal, which Beckmann suggests is the diminutive of the Spaniards for coccus, is limited to that species which came to the notice of Europeans soon after the conquest of Mexico. The Spaniards found it in high estimation among the natives, who " took infinite pains to rear the insect on plantations of the cactus ; and it formed one of the staple tributes to the crow n from certain districts." The Mexican coccus was soon in- troduced into Europe, where its superior qual- ity was immediately appreciated. Even the live insects were imported, and plantations of cactus were cultivated for their nourishment. The French and Spanish kermes, which at that time was in high repute, disappeared and was soon entirely forgotten. In the family coccidce the insects have the form of oval or rounded scales, which cover the stems, branches, and sometimes the leaves of plants. The males, winged, pass through the usual changes, but the females increase only in size, always re- taining the scale-like form. The coccus cacti is a small insect with the body wrinkled trans- versely ; its abdomen of a deep mulberry color, and bristly in the posterior part ; the legs are short and black, the antennae subulate and about one third the length of the body. The
 * male has two erect wings, the female none. In

i Mexico they are reared chiefly in the state of I Oajaca, those of the district of Mestique being I considered the best insects. There are planta- I tions of the nopal (opuntia cochinillifera) upon which they feed, the insects being tended with care equal to that ordinarily bestowed upon silkworms. Before the rainy season sets in, branches of the nopal covered with insects are cut off and brought under shelter to protect them from the weather. At the close of the wet season, about the middle of October, the plantations are stocked from these supplies by suspending little nests made of some soft woody fibre, each containing eight or ten females, upon the spines of the nopal. The insects, wanned by the sun, soon emerge and lay their eggs, each female producing more than 1,000 young. These spread rapidly over the plants, and as the young females become impregnated they attach themselves to the leaves and swell to great size, presenting the appearance more of vegetable excrescences than of animated creatures. In this condition they are gathered for the cochi- neal. The males, which are few in number, not more than one to 100 or 200 females, are of no value for this purpose. The females are picked off with a blunt knife, the first crop about the middle of December, and subsequent- ly several more of as many successive genera- tions, the last being in May. A laborer can pick off only about enough to make two ounces of cochineal in a day. Those taken off full of young lose about two thirds of their weight in the process of drying, to which they are sub- jected as soon as they are killed, which is done either by dipping them in a basket into boiling water, or placing them in a hot oven or on plates of hot iron. By the first method, usu- ally considered the best, the insects turn to a brownish red color, losing a portion of the white powder with which they were previous- ly loaded between the wrinkles of the body. In the oven they retain this, and their color is then gray. Those killed on hot iron turn black. Such is the origin of the different varieties known in our market as "silver grains" and