The male also adheres to the plant, and in about 12 clays becomes enveloped in a cottony cylindrical purse, open at the bottom ; the insects huddle together, one upon another to appearance, so that at a little distance nothing is wen but a whit( patch of cotton of uneven eurface; they continually increase in bulk. After remaining in this state for a month or thereabouts, the sexes become diatinetly recognisable. The male bCCOM CS scarlet ily, with two transparent NV ga about three times the length of his body, which exactly cover each other, when at rest appearing only as one ; he is also provided with two poisers or tails and tao hairy antennaa ; he has six legs and six immoveable eyes. Ile is now again become active (particularly an hour after sunrise), but rarely takes to the wing, being easily carried away by the wind ; he jumps and flutters about, and, having impregnated the female, dies in a few days.
The females go on increasing in roundness. They appear generally so enormously overgrown, that their eyes and mouth aro quite sunk in their rugse or wrinkles ; their antennaa and legs are ahnost covered by them, and are so irnpeded in their motions from tlie swellings about the in sertions of their legs, that they can scarce move them, much less move themselves, and the insect to the casual observer looks more like a berry than an animal. "When they are about three months old they begin to yield their young. In this state the insect is in a torpid state, and may be detached from the plant. She had previously formed on her extremity an amber-coloured liquid globule, varying in size according to the abundance of juice in the cactus, and this is supposed to indicate the maturity of her pregnancy.
It is remarkable that from the moment of her fixing upon the plant, she loses her eyes and the form of her head ; instead of a mouth, she has an extremely fine proboscis, which it is supposed she introduces into the imperceptible pores of the leaf she feeds on ; and such is her excessive torpor, that once removed she will not attach herself again. After shedding the whole of her young, the mother dies, and becomes a mere shell, turning. black. It is therefore at the time that the female commences to shed her young that measures are taken to remove tlie young to other cactus leaves.
A nest is formed in the shape of a sausage or purse, of cotton gauze or other tissue pierced with small holes, in which 8 or 10 of the feinales are put, and the purse is fastened at the bottom of a leaf of cactus by a thorn. The young escape and spread themselves over the surface of the leaf. Tho mid-day is found to be the best time for this operation, te enable the newly-born insects to get rid of tho glutinous ruatter which they bring from the parent. On this account nesting isnot recom mended in damp or cloudy days.
When the female insects tire not required for breeding purposes, they are brushed off the cacti leaves at the commencement of their shedding their young, or immediately before that time, into baskets, and killed either by exposure to the sun or by immersion in boiling water, then dried and put into bags for dye.
As tho cochineal insect is destroyed by heavy rains and high wind, they are reared outside only in the dry and cold sca.son ; during the rainy season a sufficient number of the females are either artificially kept in baskets shut out from light and heat, and so remaining torpid till the proper weather returns, or an entire generation is raised on cactus plants under cover in the house or a shed, and the fresh young o»es put out on the leaves outside when all danger from the heavy ' rains and wind are over.
• The common belief is that the cochineal insect lays eggs; this is not the case. The young insects, whilst contained within the mother, appear.to be all connected one after the other by an utnbilical cord to a common placenta, and in this order they are in due time brought. forth asdiving animals, after breaking the membrane in which they were at first probably contained as eggs. Being thus brought forth, they remain :in a cluster under the mother's belly for two or three days, until dis engaged frotn the umbilical cord. Every cochineal mother produces above a hundred young ones ; but the mortality is great, and three or .four mothers are required to cover one side of a cactus leaf with sufficient young for cultivation.
25,000 insects de,ad and dry make up one pound of cochineal, the ordinary value of which is 1 rupee 12 annas.—Colonel 'Boddant Hoyle, Prod. liett. p. 57 ; Craufnrd, p. 112.