for which the dyer is indebted to insects, and with the exception
perhaps of indigo the most important of dyeing materials. Though the
Spaniards found it employed by the natives of Mexico, where alone
it is cultivated, on their arrival in that country in 1518, its
true nature was not accurately ascertained for nearly two centuries
afterwards. Acosta indeed as early as 1530, and Herrara and Hernandez
subsequently, had stated it to be an insect. But led apparently by
its external appearance, notwithstanding the conjectures of Lister
and assertions of Pere Plumier to the contrary, it was believed by
Europeans in general to be the seed of a plant, until Hartsoeker in
1694, Leeuwenhoek and De la Hire in 1704, and Geoffroy, ten years
later, by dissections and microscopical observations incontrovertibly
proved its real origin[614].
This insect, which comes to us in the form of a reddish shrivelled
grain covered with a white powder or bloom, feeds on a particular
kind of Indian fig, called in Mexico, where alone cochineal is
produced in any quantity, Nopal, which has always been supposed
to be the _Cactus cochinilifer_, but according to Humboldt is
unquestionably a distinct species, which bears fruit internally white.
Cochineal is chiefly cultivated in the Intendency of Oaxaca; and some
plantations contain 50 or 60,000 nopals in lines, each being kept
about four feet high for more easy access in collecting the dye.
The cultivators prefer the most prickly varieties of the plant, as
affording protection to the cochineal from insects; to prevent which
from depositing their eggs in the flower or fruit, both are carefully
cut off. The greatest quantity, however, of cochineal employed in
commerce, is produced in small nopaleries belonging to Indians of
extreme poverty, called _Nopaleros_. They plant their nopaleries in
cleared ground on the slopes of mountains or ravines two or three
leagues distant from their villages; and when properly cleaned, the
plants are in a condition to maintain the cochineal in the third
year. As a stock, the proprietor in April or May purchases branches
or joints of the _Tuna de Castilla_, laden with small cochineal
insects recently hatched (_Semilla_). These branches, which may be
bought in the market of Oaxaca for about three francs (2_s._ 6_d._)
the hundred, are kept for twenty days in the interior of their huts,
and then exposed to the open air under a shed, where from their
succulency they continue to live for several months. In August and
September the mother cochineal insects, now big with young, are
placed in nests made of a species of _Tillandsia_ called _Paxtle_,
which are distributed upon the nopals. In about four months the
first gathering, yielding twelve for one, may be made, which in the
course of the year is succeeded by two more profitable harvests.
This period of sowing and harvest refers chiefly to the districts
of Sola and Zimatlan. In colder climates the semilla is not placed
upon the nopals until October or even December, when it is necessary
to shelter the young insects by covering the nopals with rush mats,
and the harvests are proportionably later and unproductive. In
the immediate vicinity of the town of Oaxaca the Nopaleros feed
their cochineal insects in the plains from October to April, and
at the beginning of the remaining months, during which it rains in
the plains, transport them to their plantations of nopals in the
neighbouring mountains, where the weather is more favourable.
Much care is necessary in the tedious operation of gathering the
cochineal from the nopals, which is performed with a squirrel or
stag's tail by the Indian women, who for this purpose squat down for
hours together beside one plant; and notwithstanding the high price
of the cochineal, it is to be doubted if the cultivation would be
profitable were the value of labour more considerable.
The cochineal insects are killed either by throwing them into
boiling water; by exposing them in heaps to the sun; or by placing
them in the ovens (_Temazealli_) used for vapour baths. The last of
these methods, which is least in use, preserves the whitish powder
on the body of the cochineal, which being thus less subject to the
adulterations so often practised by the Indians, bears a higher price
both in America and Europe[615].
The quantity at present annually exported from South America is
said by Humboldt to be 32,000 arrobas, there worth 500,040_l._
sterling[616]--a vast amount to arise from so small an insect, and
well calculated to show us the absurdity of despising any animals
on account of their minuteness. So important is the acquisition of
this insect (of which the Spanish government is extremely jealous)
regarded, that the Court of Directors of the East India Company have
offered a reward of 6000_l._ to any one who shall introduce it into
India, where hitherto the Company have only succeeded in procuring
from Brazil the wild kind producing the _sylvestre_ cochineal, which
is of very inferior value.
_Lac_, is the produce of an insect formerly supposed to be a kind of
ant or bee[617], but now ascertained to be a species of _Coccus_,
whose history will be adverted to when I come to speak of the
secretions of insects; and 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. This
substance is made use of in that country in the manufacture of
beads, rings, and other female ornaments. Mixed with sand it forms
grind-stones; and added to lamp- or ivory-black, being first
dissolved in water with the addition of a little borax, it composes
an ink not easily acted upon when dry by damp or water. In this
country, where it is distinguished by the names _stick-lac_ when in
its native state unseparated from the twigs to which it adheres;
_seed-lac_ when separated, pounded, and the greater part of the
colouring matter extracted by water; _lump-lac_ when melted and made
into cakes; and _shell-lac_ when strained and formed into transparent
laminæ;--it has hitherto been chiefly employed in the composition
of varnishes, japanned ware, and sealing-wax: but within these
few years it has been applied to a still more important purpose,
originally suggested by Dr. Roxburgh--that of a substitute for
cochineal in dyeing scarlet. The first preparations from it with
this view were made in consequence of a hint from Dr. Bancroft,
and large quantities of a substance termed _lac-lake_, consisting
of the colouring matter of stick-lac precipitated from an alkaline
lixivium by alum, were manufactured at Calcutta and sent to this
country, where at first the consumption was so considerable, that in
the three years previous to 1810 Dr. Bancroft states that the sales
of it at the India House equalled in point of colouring matter half
a million of pounds weight of cochineal. More recently, however, a
new preparation of lac colour, under the name of _lac-dye_, has been
imported from India, which has been substituted for the lac-lake, and
with such advantage, that the East India Company are said to have
saved in a few months 14,000_l._ in the purchase of scarlet cloths
dyed with this colour and cochineal conjointly, and without any
inferiority in the colour obtained[618].
Some other insects besides the Cocci afford dyes. Reaumur tells
us, that in the Levant, Persia, and China, they use the galls of a
particular species of _Aphis_ for dyeing silk crimson, which he thinks
might lead us to try experiments with those of our own country[619].
That dyes might be thus obtained seems probable from an observation
of Linné's, in his Lapland Tour, upon the galls produced by _Aphis
Pini_ on the extremities of the leaves of the spruce-fir, which, he
informs us, when arrived at maturity burst asunder, and discharge
an orange-coloured powder which stains the clothes[620]; and Mr.
Sheppard confirms this observation, the galls of this Aphis abounding
upon fir-trees in his garden. In fact, we are told that _Terminalia
citrina_, a tree common in India, yields a species of gall, the
product of an insect, which is sold in every market, being one of the
most useful dyeing drugs known to the natives, who dye their best
and most durable yellow with it[621]. A species of mite (_Trombidium
tinctorium_), a native of Guinea and Surinam, is also employed as a
dye; and it would be worth while to try whether our _T. holosericeum_,
so remarkable for the dazzling brilliancy of its crimson and the
beautiful velvet texture of its down, which seems nearly related to
_T. tinctorium_, would not also afford a valuable tincture. It is
not likely, perhaps, that many better and cheaper dyes than we now
possess can be obtained from insects; but Reaumur has suggested that
water-colours of beautiful tints, not otherwise easily obtainable,
might be procured from the excrements of the larvæ of the common
clothes-moth, which retain the colour of the wool they have eaten
unimpaired in its lustre, and mix very well with water. To get a fine
red, yellow, blue, green, or any other colour or shade of colour, we
should merely have to feed our larvæ with cloth of that tint[622].
_Wax_, so valuable for many minor purposes, and deemed with us
so indispensable to the comfort of the great, is of still more
importance in those parts of Europe and America in which it forms
a considerable branch of trade and manufacture, as an article of
extensive use in the religious ceremonies of the inhabitants.
Humboldt informs us, that not fewer than 25,000 arrobas, value
upwards of 83,000_l._, are annually exported from Cuba to New Spain,
where the quantity consumed in the festivals of the Church is immense
even in the smallest villages; and that the total export of the same
island in 1803 was not less than 42,670 arrobas, worth upwards of
130,000_l._[623] Nearly the whole of the wax employed in Europe, and
by far the greater part of that consumed in America, is the produce
of the common hive-bee; but in the latter quarter of the globe a
quantity by no means trifling is obtained from various wild species.
According to Don F. de Azara, the inhabitants of Santiago del Estero
gather every year not less than 14,000 pounds of a whitish wax from
the trees of Chaco[624].
In China wax is also produced by another insect, which from the
description of it by the Abbé Grosier seems to be a species of
_Coccus_. With this insect the Chinese stock the two kinds of tree
(_Kan-la-chu_ and _Choni-la-chu_) on which alone it is found, and which
always afterwards retain it. Towards the beginning of winter small
tumours are perceived, which increase until as big as a walnut. These
are the nests (abdomens of the females) filled with the eggs that are
to give birth to the _Cocci_, which when hatched disperse themselves
over the leaves, and perforate the bark under which they retire. The
wax (called _Pe-la_, white wax, because so by nature,) begins to appear
about the middle of June. At first a few filaments like fine soft wool
are perceived, rising from the bark round the body of the insect, and
these increase more and more until the gathering, which takes place
before the first hoar frosts in September. The wax is carried to court,
and reserved for the emperor, the princes, and chief mandarins. If an
ounce of it be added to a pound of oil, it forms a wax little inferior
to that made by bees. The physicians employ it in several diseases; and
the Chinese, when about to speak in public and assurance is necessary,
previously eat an ounce of it to prevent swoonings[625]; a use of it
for which happily our less diffident orators have no call. This account
is in the main confirmed by Geomelli Careri, except that he calls the
wax-insect a _worm_ which bores to the pith of certain trees; and
says that it produces a sufficient supply for the whole empire, the
different provinces of which are furnished from Xantung, where it is
bred in the greatest perfection, with a stock of eggs[626]. A very
different origin, however, is assigned to the _Pe-la_ by Sir George
Staunton, who informs us that it is produced by a species of Cicada
(_Flata limbata_), which in its larva state feeds upon a plant like the
privet, strewing upon the stem a powder, which when collected forms the
wax[627]. But as he merely states that this powder was "_supposed_"
to form it, and does not himself appear to have made the experiment
of dissolving it in oil, it is most probable that his information was
incorrect, and that Grosier's statement is the true one.
This probability is nearly converted into certainty by the fact that
many Aphides and Cocci secrete a wax-like substance, and that a kind
of wax very analogous to the _Pe-la_, and of the same class with
bees-wax, only containing more carbon, is actually produced in India
by a nondescript species of Coccus remarkable for providing itself
with a small quantity of honey like our bees. This substance, for
specimens of which I am indebted to the kindness of Sir Joseph Banks,
was first noticed by Dr. Anderson, and called by him _white-lac_. It
could be obtained in any quantity from the neighbourhood of Madras,
and at a much cheaper rate than bees-wax: but the experiments of
Dr. Pearson do not afford much ground for supposing that it can be
advantageously employed in making candles[628]. De Azara speaks of a
firm white wax apparently similar, and the produce of an insect of
the same tribe, which is collected in South America in the form of
pearl-like globules from the small branches of the _Quabirâmý_, a
small shrub two or three feet high[629].
Insects in some countries not only furnish the natives with wax but
with _resin_, which is used instead of tar for their ships. Molina
informs us that, at Coquimbo in Chili, resin, either the product of
an insect or the consequence of an insect's biting off the buds of
a particular species of Origanum, is collected in large quantities.
The insect in question is a small smooth red caterpillar about half
an inch long, which changes into a yellowish moth with black stripes
upon the wings (_Phal. ceraria_, Molina). Early in the spring vast
numbers of these caterpillars collect on the branches of the _Chila_,
where they form their cells of a kind of soft white wax or resin,
in which they undergo their transformations. This wax, which is at
first very white, but by degrees becomes yellow and finally brown,
is collected in autumn by the inhabitants, who boil it in water, and
make it up into little cakes for market[630].
_Honey_, another well-known product of insects, has lost much of its
importance since the discovery of sugar; yet at the present day,
whether considered as a delicious article of food, or the base of a
wholesome vinous beverage of home manufacture, it is of no mean value
even in this country; and in many inland parts of Europe, where its
saccharine substitute is much dearer than with us, few articles of
rural economy, not of primary importance, would be dispensed with
more reluctantly. In the Ukraine some of the peasants have 4 or 500
bee-hives, and make more profit of their bees than of corn[631]; and
in Spain the number of bee-hives is said to be incredible; a single
parish priest was known to possess 5000[632].
The domesticated or hive-bee, to which we are indebted for this
article, is the same according to Latreille in every part of Europe,
except in some districts of Italy, where a different species (_Apis
ligustica_ of Spinola) is kept--the same probably that is cultivated
in the Morea and the isles of the Archipelago[633]. Honey is obtained,
however, from many other species both wild and domestic. What is called
rock honey in some parts of America, which is as clear as water and
very thin, is the produce of wild bees, which suspend their clusters
of thirty or forty waxen cells, resembling a bunch of grapes, to a
rock[634]: and in South America large quantities are collected from the
nests built in trees by _Trigona Amalthea_, and other species of this
genus recently separated from Apis[635]; under which probably should
be included the _Bamburos_, whose honey, honest Robert Knox informs
us, whole towns in Ceylon go into the woods to gather[636]. According
to Azara, one of the chief articles of food of the Indians who live
in the woods of Paraguay is wild honey[637]. Captain Green observes
that, in the island of Bourbon, where he was stationed for some time,
there is a bee which produces a kind of honey much esteemed there. It
is quite of a green colour, of the consistency of oil, and to the usual
sweetness of honey superadds a certain fragrance. It is called green
honey, and is exported to India, where it bears a high price[638].
One of the species that has probably been attended to ages before
our hive-bee, is _Apis fasciata_ of Latreille, a kind so extensively
cultivated in Egypt, that Niebuhr states he fell in upon the Nile,
between Cairo and Damietta, with a convoy of 4000 hives, which were
transporting from a region where the season for flowers had passed, to
one where the spring was later[639]. Columella says that the Greeks in
like manner sent their bee-hives every year from Achaia into Attica;
and a similar custom is not unknown in Italy, and even in this country
in the neighbourhood of heaths. In Madagascar, according to Latreille,
the inhabitants have domesticated _Apis unicolor_; _A. indica_ is
cultivated in India at Pondicherry and in Bengal; _A. Adansonii_, Latr.
at Senegal[640]; and Fabricius thinks that _A. acraensis_ (_Centris_,
Syst. Piez.) _laboriosa_, and others in the East and West Indies, might
be domesticated with greater advantage than even _A. mellifica_[641].
The last, and doubtless the most valuable, product of insects to
which I have to advert is _Silk_. To estimate justly the importance
of this article, it is not sufficient to view it as an appendage of
luxury unrivalled for richness, lustre, and beauty; and without which
courts would lose half their splendour. We must consider it, what
it actually is, as the staple article of cultivation in many large
provinces in the South of Europe, amongst the inhabitants of which
the prospect of a deficient crop causes as great alarm as a scanty
harvest of grain with us; and after giving employment to tens of
thousands in its first production and transportation, as furnishing
subsistence to hundreds of thousands more in its final manufacture;
and thus becoming one of the most important wheels that give
circulation to national wealth.
But we must not confine our view to Europe. When silk was so scarce in
this country, that James the First, while king of Scotland, was forced
to beg of the Earl of Mar the loan of a pair of silk stockings to
appear in before the English ambassador, enforcing his request with the
cogent appeal, "For ye would not, sure, that your king should appear as
a scrub before strangers--" Nay, long before this period, even prior
to the time that silk was valued at its weight of gold at Rome, and
the Emperor Aurelian refused his empress a robe of silk because of its
dearness--the Chinese peasantry in some of the provinces, millions in
number, were clothed with this material; and for some thousand years to
the present time, it has been both there and in India, (where a class
whose occupation was to attend silk-worms appears to have existed from
time immemorial, being mentioned in the oldest Sanscrit books[642],)
one of the chief objects of cultivation and manufacture. You will
admit, therefore, that when nature
"--set to work millions of spinning worms,
That in their green shops weave the smooth-hair'd silk
To deck her sons[643],"
she was conferring upon them a benefit scarcely inferior to that
consequent upon the gift of wool to the fleecy race, or a fibrous
rind to the flax or hemp plants; and that mankind is not under much
less obligation to Pamphila, who, according to Aristotle, was the
discoverer of the art of unwinding and weaving silk, than to the
inventors of the spinning of those products[644].
It seems to have been in Asia that silk was first manufactured;
and it was from thence that the ancients obtained it, calling it,
from the name of the country whence it was supposed to be brought,
Sericum. Of its origin they were in a great measure ignorant, some
supposing it to be the entrails of a spider-like insect with eight
legs, which was fed for four years upon a kind of paste, and then
with the leaves of the green willow, until it burst with fat[645];
others, that it was the produce of a worm which built clay nests and
collected wax[646]; Aristotle, with more truth, that it was unwound
from the _pupa_ of a large horned caterpillar[647]. Nor was the mode
of producing and manufacturing this precious material known to
Europe until long after the Christian æra, being first learnt about
the year 550 by two monks, who procured in India the eggs of the
silk-worm moth, with which, concealing them in hollow canes, they
hastened to Constantinople, where they speedily multiplied, and were
subsequently introduced into Italy, of which country silk was long a
peculiar and staple commodity. It was not cultivated in France until
the time of Henry the Fourth, who, considering that mulberries grew
in his kingdom as well as in Italy, resolved, in opposition to the
opinion of Sully, to attempt introducing it, and fully succeeded.
The whole of the silk produced in Europe, and the greater proportion
of that manufactured in China, is obtained from the common silk-worm;
but in India considerable quantities are procured from the cocoons of
the larvæ of other moths. Of these the most important species known
are the Tusseh and Arindy silk-worms, of which an interesting history
is given by Dr. Roxburgh in the _Linnean Transactions_[648]. These
insects are both natives of Bengal. The first (_Attacus Paphia_,)
feeds upon the leaves of the _Jugube tree_ (_Rhamnus Jujuba_) or
_Byer_ of the Hindoos, and of the _Terminalia alata glabra_, Roxburgh,
the _Asseen_ of the Hindoos, and is found in such abundance as from
time immemorial to have afforded a constant supply of a very durable,
coarse, dark-coloured silk, which is woven into a cloth called
_Tusseh-doot'hies_, much worn by the Brahmins and other sects; and
would doubtless be highly useful to the inhabitants of many parts of
America and of the South of Europe, where a light and cool, and at
the same time cheap and durable dress, such as this silk furnishes,
is much wanted. The durability of this silk is indeed astonishing.
After constant use for nine or ten years it does not show any signs of
decay. These insects are thought by the natives of so much consequence,
that they guard them by day to preserve them from crows and other
birds, and by night from the bats.--The Arindy silk-worm (_Attacus?
Cynthia_, Drury), which feeds solely on the leaves of the _Palma
Christi_, produces remarkably soft cocoons, the silk of which is so
delicate and flossy, that it is impracticable to wind it off: it is
therefore spun like cotton; and the thread thus manufactured is woven
into a coarse kind of white cloth of a loose texture, but of still
more incredible durability than the last, the life of one person being
seldom sufficient to wear out a garment made of it. It is used not only
for clothing, but for packing fine cloths, &c. Some manufacturers in
England to whom the silk was shown, seemed to think that it could be
made here into shawls equal to any received from India.
Other species, as may be inferred from an extract of a letter given in
Young's _Annals of Agriculture_[649], are known in China, and have been
recently introduced into India. "We have obtained," says the writer, "a
monthly silk-worm from China, which I have reared with my own hands,
and in twenty-five days have had the cocoons in my basins, and by the
twenty-ninth or thirty-first day a new progeny feeding in my trays.
This makes it a mine to whoever would undertake the cultivation of it."