104 ON INSECTS PRODUCING: WAX FROM PORT NATAL AND CHINA. 



the trees upon which the wax-insect lives are of two or three 

 species. Of one of these, resembling an ash, a dried specimen 

 was on the table. Mr. Lockhart has in his garden at Shanghai a 

 small wax-tree of this species which he hopes shortly to colonize 

 with the wax-insect. The tree has not yet flowered, and its bo- 

 tanical position is as yet undetermined. A living plant of the 

 same species was brought to England by Mr. Fortune, from 

 whose hands it passed into those of Messrs. Eollisson and Sons of 

 Tooting. 



Specimens of the manufactured insect-wax from China were 

 also on the table. 



Note on Insects producing Wax from Port Natal and China. 

 By J. O. Westwood, Esq., F.L.S. &c. 



[Read April 15th, 1856.] 



The wax-insect from Natal, exhibited by Mr. W. "W. Saunders, is 

 the female of a large species of Coccus, analogous to the Coccus 

 ceriferus ; each female being about the size of a pea, and of a dark 

 chestnut colour, but encased in a solid layer of white waxy matter 

 nearly a quarter of an inch thick, so as to make the entire insect as 

 large as a boy's marble ; the under side being flattened, or rather 

 concave, so as to fit the convex surface of the branch on which they 

 are found. The size of the insect would render it easy of observa- 

 tion, and the thickness of the wax would make it a more important 

 object of commerce than the wax-insects of South America. 



The Chinese wax-insect, of which so fine a specimen on the 

 branch has been exhibited by Mr. Daniel Hanbury, differs from 

 the latter by the waxy matter being deposited over the surface of 

 the branch, and not confined to a coating of the insect. The spe- 

 cimens submitted to my examination are probably of considerable 

 age, as they have been much deteriorated in a commercial point of 

 view, by being attacked by other insects, namely a species of ant, 

 of which I found the heads and other parts of several specimens ; 

 and a species of moth, of which I found portions of many chrysa- 

 lides ; the larvae of which, I do not doubt, had devoured the ani- 

 mal matter of the Cocci, as well as burrowed into the wax. There 

 were also some fragments of a Curculio (OtiorhyncTius ?), but these, 

 I suppose, must have been taken accidentally on the trees in 

 collecting the Cocci. 



