DYES. 345

“scarlet” with the kermes established, properly concludes
that the kermes dye was known before the times of Moses ;
that the dye was known to the Egyptians in the time of
Moses, for the Israelites must have carried it along with
them from Egypt; and that the Arabs received the name
hermes with the dye, from Armenia and Persia, where it was
indigenous, and had been long known.

The kermes has been long superseded by the American
cochineal (Coccus cacti), which is far superior to any ancient
dye. This very singular insect belongs to the order He-
miptera, and the various species are often called scale insects;
they are of diminutive size, the males winged, the females
without these appendages; the antenne are long and fili-
form in the male, the legs short. When young they are
tolerably active, “having much the appearance of tiny red
tortoises, and feeding on the stems or leaves of plants, pierc-
ing them by means of a long and sharp rostrum, which
goes to the very centre of the shoot, causing the sap to
flow in abundance, by which means great injury is done,
especially to the vines. In this state they continue growing
in size for some time; but the period soon arrives when the
sexes undergo a very singular difference in their transforma-
tion. All the insects now affix themselves to the surface of