INSECT-WAX OF CHINA. 153 
(Anchusa tinctoria, brought from Shangtung). Verdigris is employed 
to dye them green. Stearine candles cost about 8 cents the pound. 
Pe-la, or Insect-waz. 
Prior to the thirteenth century bees’-wax was employed as a coating 
for candles in China; but about that period the white waa-insect was 
discovered, since which time that article has been wholly superseded 
by the more costly but incomparably superior product of this little 
creature, respecting the nature and characters of which, however, authors 
are at variance. From Abbé Grossier’s description of it, it has been 
suspected to be a species of Coccus, but Sir George Staunton has de- 
seribed it as of the Cicada family in Entomology (Flata limbata). 
Chinese writers speak of it as an apterous insect. From the “ Puntzau" 
aud the “ Kiang-fangpu,” herbals of high authority in China, Dr. 
Macgowan has extracted the following information respecting the waxy 
substance, Pe-/a, either yielded by this animal or exuded by the plant 
in consequence of the insect-puncture. Authors are not agreed on this 
point. 
The insect feeds upon an evergreen shrub, the Ligustrum lucidum*, 
found throughout Central China, from the Pacific to 'Thibet: but the 
insect chiefly abounds in the province of Sychuen. Much attention is 
paid to the cultivation of this tree; extensive districts of country are - 
covered with it, and it forms an important branch of agricultural in- — 
dustry. In the third or fourth year of the planting it is stocked with — 
the insect by man. In a few days after being tied to the branches, — 
the nests swell, and innumerable white insects, the size of nits, emerge — 
and spread themselves over the plant, but soon descend to the ground, 
where, if they find any grass, they take up their quarters. If they 
find no congenial resting-place below, they reascend, and fix them- 
selves to the lower surface of the leaves, where they remain several 
days, when they repair to the branches, perforating the bark to 
* Figured in ‘ Botanical Magazine,’ tab. 2565, by Dr. Sims, twenty-seven years 
ago, where it is said “a vegetable wax is procured from the berries in China.” Mr. 
Fortune, however, tells us that after careful inquiry on the matter, m districts where 
this shrub abounds, he could not learn that any such substance is À gum | M. 
On the contrary, he has brought home with him a deciduous tree as the true plant — 
which yields the wax in question. It is now living at the garden of m v" ote 
tural Society, but is not in a condition to enable the genus or family of plant to 
be determined. 
VOL. IV. 
x 
