DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 329 



in Chili, resin, either the product of an insect or the con- 

 sequence of an insect's biting off the buds of a particular 

 species of Origanum, is collected in large quantities. 

 The insect in question is a small smooth red caterpillar 

 about half an inch long, which changes into a yellowish 

 moth with l)lack stripes upon the wings {Phal. ceraria, 

 Molina). Early in the spring vast numbers of these 

 caterpillars collect on the branches of the Chila, where 

 they form their cells of a kind of soft white wax or re- 

 sin, in which they undergo their transformations. This 

 wax, which is at first very white, but by degrees be- 

 comes yellow and finally brown, is collected in autumn 

 by the inhabitants, who boil it in water, and make it 

 up into little cakes for market '^. 



lionet/, another well-known product of insects, has 

 lost much of its importance since the discovery of sugar; 

 yet at the present day, whether considered as a delicious 

 article of food, or the base of a wholesome vinous beve- 

 rage of home manufacture, it is of no mean value even 

 in this country ; and in many inland parts of Europe, 

 where its saccharine substitute is much dearer than with 

 us, few articles of rural economy, not of primary impor- 

 tance, would be dispensed with more reluctantly. In 

 the Ukraine some of the peasants have 4 or 500 bee- 

 hives, and make more profit of their bees than of corn''; 

 and in Spain the number of bee-hives is said to be incre- 

 dible ; a single parish priest was known to possess 5000'^. 



The domesticated or hive-bee, to which we are in- 

 debted for this article, is the same according to Latreille 



^ Molina's C/iili, i. 174. 



'' Communications to the Board of Jgriadt. vii. 286. 



" Mills on Bees, 77, 



