CHAPTER X 

 INSECT WHITE- WAX 



NEXT to sericulture the most important industry in 

 the prefecture of Kiating is that concerned with the 

 production of insect white-wax or " Peh-la." This 

 product has attracted the attention of many travellers, and has 

 been often discussed before. It possesses several peculiarly 

 interesting features, and cannot be omitted from any account of 

 the economic products of western Szechuan. It is produced 

 by a scale-insect {Coccus fela), and is deposited on the branches 

 of an Ash {Fraxinus chinensis) and a Privet {Ligustrum 

 lucidum) ; the scale-insects are bred in one district and trans- 

 ported to another for the production of the wax. All this 

 sounds very simple, yet it has taken nearly five centuries to 

 establish these facts. According to Chinese historians insect 

 white-wax first became known to the Chinese about the middle 

 of the thirteenth century. Nicolas Trigault, a Jesuit mission- 

 ary, wrote some account of the industry in parts of Eastern 

 China in the year 1615. During succeeding centuries several 

 accounts of it were published, but it was not until 1853, when 

 Mr. William Lockhart, of Shanghai, sent specimens of crude 

 wax to England, that the wax-producing insect became 

 scientifically known in England. In the crude wax a number 

 of dried, full-grown bodies of the female insect were discovered, 

 and were identified by Westwood as a new species of Coccus. 

 Robert Fortune, in his travels around Ningpo in 1853, had 

 noted the industry, and stated that " the tree on which the wax 

 is deposited is undoubtedly a species of Ash." In 1872 the 

 illustrious Baron Richthofen wrote of the production of insect 

 white-wax in Western China, a fact not previously known to 

 the people of the Occident. 



In 1879 Mr. E. C. Baber made a lengthy report on the 



