COCHINEAL.
Ya-lan-mi, . . . CHIN. ' Cochenilha, . . . PORT. Conchinilje, . . . DUT. Konssenel, . . . Rea. Cochenille, . . , FR. Cochinilla Grana, . SP. Koschenilje, . . . GER. I Cocbinil puchi, . . TA3I. Kermil,Gmi.,11.1ND., PERS. Cochinil purugu, . TEL. Cocchnglia, IT .
This valuable dye and colour material consists of the dried bodies of the female of the Coccus cacti, a native of Mexico. About 1200 tons are imported into Britain, price 3s. 6d. the pound. It forms a very tine and permanent dye of red, criinson, scarlet. It answers on wool and sill:, but not on cotton. Efforts were 'mule by the E. I. Company to introduce the insect into India, and at the close of the 18th century it was supposed that Drs. Anderson and Barry of Madras had succeeded in doing so, but it is said that an inferior variety, C. cacti sylvestre, was the one brought, not the variety designated C. cacti grana fin& Whether from the stock introduced in 1799, or from an indigenous variety, the Coccus cacti is at seasons plentiful in many parts of India. They swarm to localities where the prickly pear grows, aud in a brief time the plant wholly disappe.irs. The fine variety was intro ' (limed into Mysore from Teneriffe; and at the Madras Exhibition of 1857, the cochineal exhibited from Chittaldroog and Oossoor was said to be the silver grain, and to be procurable in several districts in Southern India ; but it only destroys the plants with red flowers and few prickles, aud will not promate on the yellow-flowering prickly pear. It has been exhibited from Java at the
exhibitions in Europe. The people have also been successful in introducing it into the Canary Islands, where it has of late been much cultivated; and in 1856, 1,511,617 lbs. were exported. About Th00 tons are imported into Britain, valued at 1400 the ton. The insects are about 70,000 to the pound. They are detached from the plants on which they feed by a blunt knife • are dipped in boiling water to kill them, and then dried in the sun. The female is placed on the leaf, and kept in its position by a white rag tied round the lobe. From the travels of Lieutenant Burnes and Dr. Gerard, we learn (Journ. As. Soc. of Bengal, p. 652) that an insect, supposed to be of tbe coccus genus ? is found on the root of a plant which flourishes in a marsh (near Herat), but the natives being unable to dry it, impoit it from Bokhara and Yarkand, paying about 32 sicca rupees per Indian seer. Coccus polonicus, the scarlet grain of Poland, is also found on the roots of a plant, the Scleranthus perennis.— Boyle ; Iliad. Ex. 1857; Powell, Panj. p. 194; Crawfurd's Diet. p. 112 ; 21PC. Diet.; Moral and Material Progress; Colonel Beddome.