If the season is favourable, the operation may be repeated three times in the course of a year in the same plantation. The insects thus collected are killed, by dipping into boiling water, by being put into an oven, or by being placed on a plate of hot iron. The cochineals, when withdrawn from the boiling water, are placed upon drainers, first in the sun, then in the shade, then in an airy place. During their immersion in water they lose the white powder which covers them. In this state they are called in Mexico _ronagridas_. Those which have passed through the oven they call _jaspeadas_, and are of an ashy grey; those that are torrefied are black, and are called _negras_. In commerce three sorts of cochineal are recognised; first, the _mastique_ (_mestèque_), of a reddish colour, with a more or less abundant glaucous powder; secondly, the _noire_, which is large and of a blackish brown; thirdly, the _sylvestre_, which is, on the contrary, smaller and reddish. The latter is the least esteemed, and is gathered on wild cacti. Each year there are imported into France 200,000 kilogrammes of cochineals, which represents a value of about three millions of francs. Every one knows that it is from cochineal that carmine is made, a magnificent red frequently employed by painters. Lake carmine is another product obtained from the cochineal. And, lastly, scarlet is the powder of the cochineal precipitated by a salt of tin. Before the Mexican cochineal was known in Europe, the _kermes_, or _Coccus ilicis_, known still in commerce and by chemists under the names of _Animal kermes_, _Vegetable kermes_, and _Scarlet seed_, was used for the preparation of the carmine employed in the arts. This cochineal lives by preference (at least, so it is supposed) on the evergreen oak (_Quercus ilex_), whence its specific name. The _Coccus ilicis_ develops itself almost exclusively, not on the evergreen oak, but on the _Quercus coccifera_, or kermes oak, a shrub common in dry arid places on the Continent, and which vegetates on a great number of spots in the Mediterranean, particularly on the _garrigues_, or waste land, of Herault. The females of this insect, which, dried, bear the name of _graines de kermes_, are of the size of an ordinary currant, without any trace of rings, nearly spherical, of a violet and glaucous colour. They adhere to the boughs of the shrub _Quercus coccifera_, and form dry brittle masses, which the peasants of the south of France collect, and sell at a tolerably high price. Before we possessed the cochineal of Mexico and of Algeria, this cochineal was very much employed in the south of Europe, in the East, and in Africa. It furnishes a beautiful red colour. This last named and the Mexican cochineal are somewhat used in pharmacy. They enter into alkermes, a sort of liquor served at dinner in Italy, chiefly at Florence and Naples.