in zoology, a genus of insects belonging to the order of insecta hemiptera. The rostrum is situated on the breast; the feelers are longer than the thorax; the four wings are deflected; the thorax is gibbous; and the feet are of the jumping kind. There are 17 species; and the trivial names are taken from the plants which they frequent, as the chermes graminis, or grass-bug; the chermes ulmi, or elm-bug, &c. The chermes ficus, or fig-tree bug, one of the largest of the genus, is brown above and greenish beneath. The antennae, likewise brown, are large, hairy, and one third longer than the thorax. The feet are yellowish; the wings large, twice the length of the abdomen. They are placed so as to form together an acute roof. The membrane of which they consist is thin and very transparent; but they have brown veins, strongly marked, especially towards the extremity. The rostrum of this chermes is black, and takes its rise from the lower part of the thorax, between the first and second pair of feet. It is an insect to be met with in great numbers upon the fig-tree. The larva has six feet. It is like the insect, when provided with wings. Its form is oblong, and its motion slow. The chrysalis differs from it by two flat buds that spring from the thorax and inclose the wings, afterwards seen in the perfect insect. These chrysalids are frequently met with on plants; and the two plates of their thorax give them a broad uncouth appearance, and a heavy look. When the little chrysalids are going to be metamorphosed, they remain motionless under some leaves which they fix themselves upon. Their skin then divides upon the head and thorax, and the perfect insect comes forth with his wings, leaving the spoil of his chrysalis open and rent anteriorly upon the leaf. These kind of sloughs are often found beneath the leaves of the fig-tree. The perfect insect is furnished with four wings, large in proportion to its body, veined, and placed in the form of a roof; and with them it flies. It has, moreover, the faculty of leaping pretty briskly, by means of its hinder-legs, which play like a spring. When it is attempted to catch the chermes, it makes its escape rather by leaping than flying. Some of those insects have a manoeuvre worthy of notice. Several species are provided at the extremity of their body with a small sharp-pointed implement, but which lies concealed, and that they draw out in order to deposit their eggs, by making a puncture in the plant that suits them. By this method the fir-tree chermes produces that enormous scaly protuberance that is to be found at the summit of the branches of that tree, and which is formed by the extravasation of the juices occasioned by the punctures. The young larvae shelter themselves in cells contained in the tumor. The white down, under which the larva of the pine-chermes is found, seems to be produced much in the same manner. That of the box-tree chermes produces no tubercula like those; but its punctures make the leaves of that tree bend and grow hollow in the shape of a cap, which by the union of those inflected leaves produces at the extremity of the branches a kind of knobs, in which the larva of that insect find shelter. The box-chermes, as well as some others, has yet another peculiarity, which is, that the larva and its chrysalis eject at the anus a white sweet-tasted matter, that softens under the touch, and is not unlike manna. This substance is found in small white grains within the balls formed by the box-leaves, and a string of the same matter is often seen depending from the anus of the insect.

CHERMES Mineral. Sea Kermes.