Cocytus

“ There are many other species of the Coccus tribe in Ceylon, some (Pseudococcus?) never appearing as a scale, the female wrapping herself up in a white cottony exudation; many species nearly allied to the true Coccus infest common plants about gardens, such as the Nerium Oleander, Plumeria Acuminata, and others with milky juices ”

“ After that the hens felt safe, for there were no more foxes; and when they heard about Peck they did not mourn at all, but liked Cocky better than ever, and lived happily together, with nothing to trouble them.
King Cockyloo grew to be a splendid bird,—pure white, with a tall red comb on his head, long spurs on his yellow legs, many fine feathers in his tail, and eyes that shone like diamonds. His crow was so loud that it could be heard all over the neighborhood, and people used to say, "Hark! hear Farmer Hunt's cock crow. Isn't it a sweet sound to wake us in the dawn?" ”

“ The Cochin, with its deeply furrowed frontal bones, peculiarly shaped occipital foramen, short wing-feathers, short tail containing more than fourteen feathers, broad nail to the middle toe, fluffy plumage, rough and dark-coloured eggs, and especially from its peculiar voice, is probably the most distinct of all the breeds. If any one of our breeds has descended from some unknown species, distinct from G. bankiva, it is probably the Cochin ”

“ One sees him flying over the nopals, then suddenly alighting on a female, who resembles a fat wood-louse round and puffy, twice as stout as the male, wingless. Glued by her feet to a branch, with her proboscis stuck into it, continually pumping sap, she looks like a fruit, like an oak-apple or oak-gall on a peduncle for which reason Réaumur called her picturesquely the gall-insect. In certain species of cocides the male is so small that his proportion is that of an ant strolling over a peach. ”

“ Cochineal, the Coccus cacti, is doubtless the most valuable product for which the dyer is indebted to insects, and with the exception perhaps of indigo, the most important of dyeing materials. It is found on a kind of fig, called in Mexico, where the insect is produced in any quantity, Nopal or Tuna, which generally has been supposed to be the Cactus cochinilifer, but according to Humboldt is unquestionably a distinct species, which bears fruit internally white. ”

“ In all cases, so far as known, the life-cycle is digenetic, an asexual generation (produced by schizogony) alternating with a sexual one (gametogony) . After conjugation of two highly-differentiated gametes has taken place, a resistant oocyst is formed, which provides for the dispersal of the species; inside this sporogony (spore- and sporozoite-formation) goes on.
Hake (1839) was, perhaps, the first to describe a Coccidian, but he regarded the parasites as pathological cell-products. ”

“ The genus brachytarsus is parasitic on coccus, and the grub, not the imago, is the enemy of the white wax insect. The Chinese, therefore, are not far wrong when they pay a lower price for the beetle-infested scales.
When a scale is plucked from the tree, an orifice where it was attached to the bark is disclosed. By this orifice the cocci are enabled to escape from the detached scales. If the scales are not detached, but remain fixed to the bark, it may be asked, “How are the cocci to find their way out?” ”

“ The men of science had come down to the level of the members of the Chamber of Deputies, and talked them into erecting a spacious hothouse to contain the finest plants of the tropics. Within its glass walls the illustrious professor has found a solitary living specimen of the Coccus cacti—Cochineal—Jarpeado, whose habits they had studied so profoundly as to discover that the prince was endowed with pride of race, and passion of sentiment, opposed to his union with any partner saving a princess of his own vermilion blood. ”

“ The Coccidae have only a single claw to the foot; the males (fig. 12 a) have the fore-wings developed and the hind-wings greatly reduced, while in the female wings are totally absent and the body undergoes marked degradation (figs. 12, e, 13, a, b) . In the Coccids the formation of a protective waxy secretion—present in many genera of Homoptera—reaches its most extreme development. In some coccids—the “mealy-bugs” (Dactylopius, &c.) for example—the secretion forms a white thread-like or plate-like covering which the insect carries about. ”

“ Nevertheless in the effort to render fertilization absolutely certain, a few Coccidia have acquired (secondarily) the power of associating; a state of things which enables those forms, moreover, to effect an economy in the number of male gametes, only three or four being developed. ”

“ By Linnæus it is called Coccus Cacti. The second kind is found chiefly on a species of oak, the Quercus Ilex, in the Levant, Spain, France, and other southern countries, and is therefore called Coccus Ilicis, Coccus arborum, and often also kermes. The third comprehends that saleable cochineal found on the roots of several perennial plants, which is known commonly under the appellation of Polish or German cochineal; though it is not certain whether those insects produced upon the perennial knawel (Scleranthus) , bears-breech (Uva-ursi) and other plants, be the same species. ”

“ Numerous works confirmed the occurrence of coccidia, not only in all classes of vertebrate animals, but also in invertebrates (Mollusca, Myriapoda, Annelida, etc.) . A large number of genera and species have in the course of time been described which inhabit the epithelium of the intestine and its appendages for choice, but are also found in other organs (kidneys, spleen, ovaries, vas deferens, testicles) . ”

“ Thus we have seen that in Aphidae generations of imperfect individuals are produced with rapidity, while the individual is not directly very prolific. In Coccidae the reverse is the case—the generations are usually similar to one another; they do not, as a rule, follow with rapidity, and the female is usually very prolific, thousands of young being sometimes produced by a single individual. The extraordinary polymorphism of the species of Aphidae is not exhibited by Coccidae, though, contrary to what we find in Aphidae, the males and females are usually excessively different. ”

“ Of late years the males of a great many species have become known, so that ordinary sexual reproduction must be considered as the normal method in Coccidae, although, in the great majority of cases, the male is still unknown. It has, however, been shown in numerous cases that parthenogenesis may occur even when males exist; and there are some abundant species of which it has not been possible to find a male. ”

“ After their form has been changed by the action of the growing parasite, they finally perish. The cell membrane then alone surrounds the coccidia, which, at least in the species sufficiently known, begin to propagate by an asexual process (schizogony) , the parasites themselves becoming schizonts, as the initial stage is usually called. They differ from later stages (sporonts or gametocytes) , which resemble them in form, by the absence of granulations in the cytoplasm, as well as by the vesicular nucleus. ”

“ These round or crescent-shaped cells are the gametocytes, which only develop further in the drawn blood, whether under the microscope, protected against evaporation, or in the stomach of the Anopheles: the crescents become round, and then they, like the already round ones of Haemamoeba, differentiate in exactly the same way as the corresponding cells of Coccidium schubergi. The female cell only exhibits certain changes in its nucleus to convert it into an oosphere: the male emits a small number of sperms, long flagellum-like bodies, each with a nucleus ”

“ The parasite invariably destroys its host-cell completely. The latter is at first stimulated to abnormal growth and activity and becomes greatly hypertrophied, the nucleus also undergoing karyolytic changes (fig. 4) . The fatty materials elaborated by the host-cell are rapidly used up by the Coccidian, as nourishment; and at length the weakened and disorganized cell is no longer able to assimilate but dies and is gradually absorbed by the parasite, becoming reduced to a mere enclosing skin or envelope. ”

“ With the impetus thus given to the study of coccus—or, as we should now say, the Coccidæ—the question as to the true nature of the material pressed anew for settlement. According to the "Encyclopædia Britannica," the idea that the cochineal was the seed or fruit of a plant was prevalent as late as 1725, but Martin Lister, in 1672, indicated its relation to the insects. In 1703, it is stated, Leeuwenhoek discovered its true nature by the aid of the microscope, "but not unnaturally supposed it to be allied to the ladybird." ”

“ The Coccididæ, like all Homoptera, produce great numbers of young; but their increase does not appear to be as rapid as that of some other families. The numbers of some Aphididæ or Aleurodidæ produced from a single female in the course of a single year have been calculated at hundreds of thousands, if not millions; and as many as eleven generations have been produced in little over half a year. Coccids, however, as a rule, do not propagate at this alarming rate. ”

“ Cocus————, or small white scaly insect, which generally infests Cycas revolùta and circinàlis, the varieties of Nèrium oleánder, Oleas, and several species of Acacias, may be destroyed by washing as above with a sponge, and a strong decoction of tobacco, using the liquid about the warmth of 100°. Being thus heated, it irritates the insect, when, by easing itself from its bed, the fluid passes under it, and causes immediate death. If it is not thus irritated, it adheres so closely to the foliage, that it will keep you at defiance. ”

“ Kermes-berries, Coccus ilicis, and Cochineal, C. cacti, Geoffroy says, “are esteemed to be greatly cordial and sudorific, being very full of volatile salt. They are given also to prevent abortion from any strain or hurt.”907
Lac is the produce of an insect supposed by Amatus Lusitanus to be a kind of ant, and by others a bee, but now ascertained to be a species belonging to the Coccidæ—the Coccus ficus or C. lacca. It is collected from various trees in India, where it is found so abundantly, that, were the consumption ten times greater than it is, it could be readily supplied. ”

“ Of the several kinds of insects injurious to vegetation, the coccids as a family are undoubtedly of major importance, because they infest not one group, or allied group, of plants, as do so many other injurious insects, but an extensive range of widely different plants. Some coccids are much more injurious than others, the San José Scale, for example, having a very virulent toxic influence, while the Greedy Scale may cause but little damage, even when the plant is completely encrusted by it; further, some plants may be more susceptible to injury than others by the same species of coccid. ”

“ Domingo caused the destruction of the plantations. Cochineal has been cultivated with some success in several of the British West India islands. Thus the Rev. L. Guilding, writing a few years ago to Dr. Hooker, says, “I possess a considerable nursery of this cactus, inhabited by thousands of the true Coccus cacti, and I do not despair of being able to send to the Society of Arts a large quantity of dried insects before the termination of the present year.” ”

“ Proliferation of the connective tissue may occur around the coccidial nodules, which then contain large numbers of oöcysts in various stages of development. It is said that the oöcysts in the older nodules do not seem to be capable of further development. Schizogony (fig. 73) and gametogony in all stages can be found in both liver and gut.
Young rabbits often die of intestinal coccidiosis before infection of the liver occurs. The repeated schizogony of Eimeria stiedæ in the gut is sufficient to cause death. ”

“ For, although any one individual only causes the death of a single host-cell, yet the number of the parasites may be so enormously increased by this means, that the entire affected epithelium may be overrun and destroyed. Thus are occasioned grave attacks of coccidiosis, characterized by severe enteritis and diarrhoea, which may end fatally. In the case of the Vertebrates, secondary causes, resulting from the stoppage of the bile ducts, also help to produce death. There is, however, one factor in the endangered animal’s favour. Schizogony cannot go on indefinitely ”

“ The Cocci cover so completely the bark of the trees that it has a scurfy appearance. When the female has deposited her eggs, her body dries up and becomes a solid crust, which covers the eggs, and its squamous surface is not unlike fat nits. These insects do harm by piercing the wood with their sharp proboscis, which is formed of a sheath having numerous joints, and three bristles or darts of great tenuity. ”

“ Spores polyzoic. Founded for I. rara, parasitic in the black slug (Limax cinereo-niger) . Many authors consider that Schneider was mistaken in attributing many sporozoites to this form, and would unite with it the genus Diplospora.
Fam. Tetrasporocystidae, Léger. The oocyst contains 4 spores.
Genus 1. Coccidium, [7] Leuckart. The spores are dizoic and the sporocysts rounded or oval. A very large number of species are known, mostly from Vertebrate hosts. C. cuniculi (= C. oviforme) from the rabbit (intestine and diverticula) , but also occurring sometimes in other domestic animals ”

“ Fruit of (usually) 5, hairy or nearly glabrous, woody cocci, each with 2 pair of stiff sharp spines, forming a more or less spherical, spiny ball. Of the two pair of spines, one pair is long and one short. The cocci are very variable. Stigmatic lobes larger than the diameter of the styles. ”

“ In the latter case the complexity of the living substance becomes visible only through its product, the shell, for the protoplasm itself does not show any visible intricacy, and the same is true of the Coccidium whose life-history we have just been tracing, for in each of its stages it seems to be of very simple organization, though the succession of numerous different forms shows that its germ-substance must be composed of numerous determinants. ”