Note 1170 — KERMES. COCHINEAL.

Matthiolus, in his Annotations on Dioscorides, p. 725, says that the monks who wrote a Commentary on Mesues assert that the kermes of the Arabians, the Coccus radicum, is not the Coccus arborum; but he refutes this idea upon the grounds that the Arabians themselves say everything of their kermes that is related of them by Dioscorides. I am almost induced to conjecture that the monks made this assertion in order to render more agreeable that tribute which was paid to them, in some countries, under the name of St. John’s blood.