Cochineal

“ And finally, I have never been able to find in the belly of the beetle a single little grain or egg, although I sought most zealously; whereas such are found in great abundance in any cochineal which is broken up after having been sufficiently macerated. What an excellent argument! It is proven beyond doubt that the cochineal is no part of the ladybird, notwithstanding the assertions of the most eminent authority then living. ”

“ At the end of three and a half to four months they become 'grains of cochineal,' not unlike wheat, but smaller, rounder, and thicker. The sign of maturity is the appearance of new insects upon the leaf. The rags are taken off, as they were put on, by women and girls, and the cochineal is swept into baskets with brushes of palm-frond. As the abuelas grow in winter there is great loss of life. For each pound sown the cultivator gets only two to two and a half, innumerable insects being lost either in the house or out of doors. ”

“ Cochineal is principally used to prepare lake and carmine, and in dyeing. Its colouring principle is freely soluble in water. It imparts every variety of scarlet and crimson to textile fabrics previously prepared with482 alum, tin, and other mordants. It is also used to colour liqueurs, tinctures, and confectionery. It has been recommended as an antispasmodic and anodyne, in hooping-cough and neuralgia.—Dose, 10 to 60 gr., in powder, confection, or tincture. ”

“ Wild cochineal is distinguished by having a woolly downy coat, which is not the case with the fine cochineal. The females, of which there are from one hundred and fifty to two hundred for each male, are marked by the absence of wings, and constitute the commercial article. ”

“ The cochineal is placed in large wooden trays lined with cloth, and containing about 15 lbs. of the recently gathered seed. When filled without crowding, the trays are covered with squares of cotton-cloth (raw muslin) , measuring 12-16 inches. Usually the fanega requires 20-30 quintals (128 lbs., or a cwt.) , each costing $15 to $17. The newly born insects (hijuelos) adhere to the cochineal-rags, and these are carried to the tunera, in covered baskets.
The operation is repeated with fresh rags till the parturition is completed. The last born, after 12-15 days, are the weakest. ”

“ Father.—Ha, ha! this too will perhaps turn out a new discovery, and an additional source of usefulness, which this plant possesses. Let me look at your fig; I will lay a wager that it is the insect called the cochineal.
Jack.—The cochineal! what a droll name! What is the cochineal, father?
Father.—It is an insect of the kind called suckers, or kermes; he feeds upon the Indian fig, which, no doubt, is the cause of his beautiful colour, which forms an object of considerable importance in the trade of a dyer; for nothing else produces so fine a scarlet. ”

“ The rearing of cochineal was once a large and important industry, and although still pursued, it has seriously declined, in consequence of the discovery of the azo scarlets derived from coal-tar. The colouring matter of cochineal, carminic acid, is believed by chemists to be a derivative of naphthalene, but its artificial production has not yet been accomplished. Cochineal dyes a purple colour with chromium mordant, crimson with aluminium, scarlet with tin, and grey or slate with iron. Its chief employment is for the purpose of dyeing crimson, and more especially scarlet, on wool. ”

“ The simple explanation is that the cochineal, when mature, transforms into a beetle, and in doing so utterly loses the power of staining, and hence is no longer to be termed a cochineal. Now this loss of color at maturity is paralleled by other phenomena already recorded. In the case of the dye-coccus of the oak, the Kermes, so long as the little berries are full of little worms or animals, they are rich in the colored juice. ”

“ A great quantity of cochineal is gathered in this country, which grows in the fields as peas do elsewhere. It comes from a fruit the size of a walnut which is full of seed within. [59] It is left to come to maturity until the said seeds are dry, and then it is cut like corn and beaten to have the seed, of which they sow again so as to have more. It is the king of Spain alone who has the said cochineal sown and collected; and the merchants must buy it of his appointed officers, for it is merchandise of high price, and is esteemed as gold and silver. ”

“ A spoonful of grain, about 4 ounces, is put into each bag and is hung to the leaves: the young ones crawl through the holes or meshes till the plant is sufficiently populated. In hot weather they may be changed eight times a day with great economy of labour. This is the most favourable form; the insects go straight to the leaves, and it is easy to estimate the proportions.
So far Don Abel. He concludes with saying that cochineal, which in other days made the fortune of his native islands, will soon be completely abandoned. Let us hope not. ”

“ The females only are used as colouring material; the males are very small, and much fewer in number. The cultivation of the proper species of cactus and of the cochineal has spread to most tropical countries. The females, which are attached in enormous numbers, are brushed off and killed by heating upon hot plates. They then appear as grains of the size of millet seeds, with a wrinkled surface covered with a silvery grey dust. This variety of cochineal is the best. Black cochineal also comes into commerce; it has a brownish black colour. ”

“ Cochin, kō′chin, n. a large-sized variety of the domestic hen, with feathered legs, full breast, small tail.—n. Cō′chin-chin′a, a large-sized hen originally from Cochin-China.—adj. Cō′chin-Chinese′.
Cochineal, koch′i-nēl, n. a scarlet dye-stuff consisting of the dried bodies of certain insects gathered from the cactus plant in Mexico, the West Indies, &c.: the insect itself. [Sp. cochinilla, dim. of L. coccinus—Gr. kokkos, a berry, as the cochineal was formerly supposed to be the berry or seed of the plant.] ”

“ N.B. All ices that are in the shape of fruit, should be coloured according to the fruit they represent.
81 To prepare the Cochineal for colouring different Sorts of Ice. To an ounce of cochineal pounded fine, allow a quart of clear river water: let it boil, then put in the cochineal with a table spoonful of pounded rock allum, and the same quantity of cream of tartar; if it seems to be a purple colour, add a little more cream of tartar, let it all boil for two minutes, then strain it into a bottle for use. ”

“ A nopalerie is in perfection six years, after which the insects are taken away and the plants cut down.
The cochineal harvest takes place every year as soon as the young insects begin to run about. Assembling his friends, old and young, the owner of the cochineal ground enters it at break of day with a crowd of men, women, and children, provided with knives six inches long and two wide, and also with dishes and with baskets. The blade of the knife is rounded at the top, so as to injure neither the insect nor the plant ”

“ 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." ”

“ Such is the history given by de Menonville himself, in his volumes entitled ‘Voyage à Guaxaca.’ Baron Humboldt, describing the management of cochineals in this and in other parts of South America, gives some additional particulars. He ascertained that in a colder climate, the colour of the cochineal is equally fine, but the harvests are more uncertain. Plains or valleys are generally more favourable to the rapid increase of the cochineals than elevated ground, but such places also abound in insect enemies, and in lizards, rats, and birds, which devour the crop. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Has a great enemy in a minute insect called the Cochineal, owing more, perhaps, to its being nearly of the same colour, than from any resemblance to the Spanish insect of that name. A gentleman who had eight trees that had for several years borne a delicious apple, had the mortification to find the whole of his trees at once infested by those insects in excessive number ”

“ The production of cochineal was carried on in Mexico, which is the country of the cactus, long before it was known to Cortes or any other European. Only the female insect is used in the manufacture of the color. The male has wings, but the female has none.”
“That’s so that they cannot go gadding about,” added Scott.
“Very likely; for the female fastens herself to a plant; and this branch is cut off with the creature upon it. The laborer forms a sort of soft nest on the cochineal plant ”

“ Sugar cane thrives extremely well here, although it is four years before it is ripe: remarkably fine sugar is made from it, superior to any other that can be procured in this neighbourhood; but the quantity is small.
Cochineal, called here pilcay, is found in abundance in the leaves of the cactus, and is collected by the natives for the purpose of dyeing. The name given by the Spaniards to this valuable insect is cochinilla, signifying a little pig ”

“ The females yield the best colour, and are in number to the males as three hundred to one. Cochineal was at first supposed to be a grain, which name it retains by way of eminence among dyers, but naturalists soon discovered it to be an insect. ”

“ We have only pointed out in a general way how the cochineal harvest is conducted. We will now enter into some details on the subject. These insects are gathered when the females are about to lay, that is, when a few young are hatched. It is when the females are pregnant that they contain the greatest amount of colouring matter. When the harvest time has arrived, the rearers stretch out on the ground pieces of linen at the foot of the plants, and detach the cochineals from them, brushing the plants with a rather hard brush, or scraping them off with the blade of a blunt knife. ”

“ To many thousands of persons they afford the means of living with comfort and happiness. Even kings are indebted to them for their grandest garments. Immense fortunes have been procured, by their means, to persons in trade, and the great number of people who daily subsist by manufacturing silk, either by spinning, weaving, or dyeing it, have the greatest reason to thank Providence for the institution of this insect. To the last, the Cochineal (Coccinella Cacti of Linnæus) affords him the power of giving our silks and cloths the most beautiful and lasting colours ”

“ Wherever maize thrives, producing a good dark leaf and grain in plenty, there cochineal also succeeds. The soil is technically called mina de tosca, a whitish, pumice-like stone, often forming a gravel conglomerate under a rocky stratum: hardening by exposure, it is good for building. Immense labour is required to prepare such ground for the cactus. The earth must be taken from below the surface-rock, as at Malta ”

“ When the Mexicans have gathered the Cochineal Insects, they put them into holes in the ground, where they kill them with boiling water, and afterwards dry them in the sun; or they kill them by putting them into an oven, or laying them upon hot plates. From the various methods of killing them arise the different colours in which they appear when brought to us. While they are living, they seem to be sprinkled over with a white powder, which they lose when the boiling water is poured upon them, but preserve when killed in an oven. ”

“ Their young resemble those of many other crustaceans in form; but when mature they are always attached to other objects, either directly or by means of a stalk, and their bodies are enclosed by a calcareous shell composed of several pieces, two of which can open to give issue to a bunch of curled, jointed tentacles, which represent the limbs.
COCCUS.—The genus of insects including the cochineal. In these the male is a minute, winged fly, and the female generally a motionless, berry-like mass. ”

“ The cosecha-insects, shell-like in form, grey-coloured, of light weight, but all colouring matter, are either sold for breeding abuelas or are placed upon trays and killed in stoves by a heat of 150°-160° (Fahr.) . The drying process is managed by reducing the temperature to 140°. The time varies from twenty-four to forty-eight hours: when hurried it injures the crop. Ninety full-grown insects weigh some forty-eight grains, and there is a great reduction by drying; some 27,000 yield one pound of the prepared cochineal. ”