(see Coccus ilicis, Encycl.) has been proved by Professor Beckmann to have been used as a dye from very remote antiquity. "All the ancient Greek and Latin writers," he says, "agree, that kermes, called by the latter coccus, perhaps also coccus, and often grana, were found upon a low shrubby tree, with prickly leaves, which produced acorns, and belonged to the genus of the oak; and there is no reason to doubt that they mean coccus ilicis, and that low evergreen oak, with the prickly leaves of the holly (aquifolium), which is called at present in botany quercus ilex." This assertion appears more entitled to credit, as the ancients assign for the native country of this tree places where it is still indigenous, and produces kermes.

"I am inclined (continues our author) to believe, that the art of employing kermes to dye a beautiful red colour was discovered in the East at a very early period; that it was soon so much improved as to excel even the Tyrian purple; and that it contributed to cause the proper purple to be at length abandoned. From the costly red dyes extolled so much by the Hebrew writers, and which, according to the opinion of learned commentators, were made from kermes, I shall not venture to adduce any proofs, as I am not acquainted with the Oriental languages to examine their accounts with accuracy; but I have found a passage in Vopiscus, which seems to render my conjecture very probable. That author informs us, that the king of Persia sent to the Emperor Aurelian, besides other articles of great value, some woollen cloth, which was of a much coarser and brighter purple colour than any that had been ever seen in the Roman empire, and, in comparison of which, all the other purple cloth worn by the Emperor and the ladies of the court appeared dull and faded. In my opinion, this cloth, which was of a beautiful purple red colour, was not dyed with the liquor of the murex, but with kermes. This idea was indeed not likely to occur to the Romans, who were acquainted only with the purple of the murex, and who had less experience in the arts in general than in that of robbing and plundering; or who, at any rate, in that respect were inferior to the Orientals. The Roman emperors caused this supposed purple to be sought for in India by the most experienced dyers; who, not being able to find it, returned with a vague report that the admired Persian purple was produced by the plant sandix. I am well aware, that some commentators have supposed that the sandix was our madder. Hesychius, however, says, very confidently, that the sandix is not a plant, but a kind of shrubby tree, which yields a dye like the coccus. The Roman dyers, perhaps prejudiced in favour of the murex, made that only the object of their search; and their labour proving fruitless, they might have heard something of kermes, or the kermes-oak, which they did not fully understand. Our dyers, even at present, believe many false accounts reflecting the dye-buffs which they use daily."

The use of kermes in dyeing seems to have been continued through every century. In the middle ages, as they are called, we meet with kermes under the name of vermicular or vermicularis; and on that account cloth dyed with them was called vermicularis. Hence the French word vermill, and its derivative vermillon, as is well known, had their extraction; the latter of which originally signified the red dye of kermes, but it is now used for any red paint, and also for fine pounded cinnabar.

KHAS, in Bengal, lands taken into the hands of government, opposed to the management of Zemindars or farmers. See ZEMINDAR in this Supplement.