Part 22

In the Treasvrie of Avncient and Moderne Times, we read: “_Galen_ saith, that there fell such great quantity of this Dew (in his time) in his Countrey of _Pergamus_, that the Countrey people (greatly delighted therein) gave thankes therefor to _Iupiter_. _Ælianus_ writeth also that there fell such plenty thereof in _India_, in the Region which is called _Prasia_, and so moistened the Grasse, that the Sheepe, Kine, and Goates feeding thereon, yeelded Milke sweete like Hony, which was very pleasing to drinke. And when they used that Milke in any disease, they needed not to put any Hony therein, to the end it should not corrupt in the stomacke: as it is appointed in Hecticke Feauers, Consumption, Tisickes, and for others that are ulcered in the intestines, as is confirmed by the Histories of _Portugall_.”[894]

The Aphides, like many other insects, sometimes migrate in clouds; and among other instances on record of these migrations, Mr. White informs us that about three o’clock in the afternoon of the first of August, 1785, the people of the village of Selborne were surprised by a shower of Aphides which fell in those parts. Persons who walked in the street at this time found themselves covered with them, and they settled in such numbers in the gardens and on the hedges as to blacken every leaf. Mr. White’s annuals were thus all discolored with them, and the stalks of a bed of onions were quite coated over for six days afterward. These swarms, he remarks, were then no doubt in a state of emigration, and might have come from the great hop-plantations of Kent and Sussex, the wind being all that day in the east. They were observed at the same time in great clouds about Farnham, and all along the vale from Farnham to Alton.[895] A similar emigration of these insects Mr. Kirby once witnessed, to his great annoyance, when traveling later in the year in the Isle of Ely. The air was so full of them, that they were incessantly flying into his eyes and nostrils, and his clothes were covered by them; and in 1814, in the autumn, the Aphides were so abundant for a few days in the vicinity of Ipswich, as to be noticed with surprise by the most incurious observers.[896] Neither Mr. White nor Mr. Kirby informs us what particular species formed these immense flights, but it is most probable they belonged to the Hop-fly, _Aphis humuli_.

Reaumur tells us that in the Levant, Persia, and China, they use the galls of a particular species of _Aphis_ for dyeing silk crimson.[897]

In England, the mischief caused by the Hop-fly, _Aphis humuli_, in some seasons, as in 1802, has brought the duty of hops down from £100,000 to £14,000.

A quite common, though erroneous, belief in England is, that Aphides are produced, or brought by, a northern or eastern wind. Thomson has fallen into the error; he has also confounded the mischief of caterpillars with that of the Aphis:

For oft, engendered by the hazy north, Myriads on myriads insect armies warp, Keen in the poison’d breeze, and wasteful eat Through buds and bark into the blackened core Their eager way. A feeble race! Yet oft The sacred sons of vengeance, on whose course Corrosive famine waits, and kills the year.

Coccidæ--Shield-lice.

The Kermes-dye, or scarlet, made from the _Coccus ilicis_ of Linnæus, an insect found chiefly on a species of oak, the _Quercus ilex_, in the Levant, France, Spain, and other parts of the world, was known in the East in the earliest ages, even before the time of Moses, and was a discovery of the Phœnicians in Palestine, who also first employed the murex and buccinum for the purpose of dyeing.

_Tola_ or _Thola_ was the ancient Phœnician name for this insect and dye, which was used by the Hebrews, and even by the Syrians; for it is employed by the Syrian translator.[898] Among the Jews, after their captivity, the Aramæan _zehori_ was more common. This dye was known also to the Egyptians in the time of Moses; and it is most probable that the color mentioned in Exodus[899] as one of the three which were prescribed for the curtains of the tabernacle, and for the “holy garments” of Aaron, and which the English translators have rendered by the word _scarlet_ (not the color now so called, which was not known in James the First’s reign when the Bible was translated), was no other than the blood-red color dyed from the _Coccus ilicis_.

The Arabs received the name _Kermes_ or _Alkermes_ for the insect and dye, from Armenia and Persia, where the insect was indigenous, and had long been known; and that name banished the old name in the East, as the name scarlet has in the West. For the first part of this assertion we must believe the Arabs. The Kermes, however, were not indigenous to Arabia, as the Arabs appear to have no name for them. To the Greeks this dye was known under the name of _Coccus_, as appears from Dioscorides, and other Greek writers.[900]

From the epithets _kermes_ and _coccus_, and that of _vermiculus_ or _vermiculum_, given to the Kermes in the middle ages, when they were ascertained to be insects, have sprung the Latin _coccineus_, the French _carmesin_, _carmine_, _cramoisi_ and _vermeil_, the Italian _chermisi_, _cremisino_, and _chermesino_, and our _crimson_ and _vermilion_.

The imperishable reds of the Brussels and other Flemish tapestries were derived from the Kermes; and, in short, previous to the discovery of cochineal, this was the material universally used for dyeing the most brilliant red then known. At the present time the Kermes are only gathered in Eur