, 
7 , ‘ 
4 memoirs of Dr ames Anderson. May gy: 
,ter of this article. To give some idea of the nature 
of this correspondence, and the objects it embraces, 
I beg leave to subjoin the following letters : 
Letter from Dr James Anderson to the honourableFohn Hollond, 
president and governor, &c. and council of Madras. 
How. srr anp sirs, Nov. 24. 1789. 
Near three years ago, nests of insects were brought -re 
from the woods, which adhered to branches of the staphy- 
lza vepretum, and resembled small cowry fhells: to con- 
vince me they were wholesome, the people eat many of 
“them with avidity. 
{ afterwards found the same kind of nests on the wodier, 
sitodium, calophyllum, inophyllum, and rondeletia, filled 
sometimes with a motionlefs red substance, at other times, 
a numerous hive of small creeping red insects, and fre- 
quently only an empty thin hufk, or pellicle of the mother 
insect remained as a lining. 
Lately the abbé Grofsier’s history of Cis fell into 
my hands, where, under the article wax tree, I found 
an insect mentioned which seemed to correspond with 
what I had seen; I then threw some of the nests, 
which are properly the enamel white covering of an in- 
sect, in the manner of lac, into olive oil, heated over the 
fire, where they were soon difsolved ; on cooling, the mix- 
ture lost its fluidity, became as hard and firm as tallow 
or mutton suet, and retained some degree of transparency, 
although it pofsefsed the colour of bleached wax. 
The Wotters call them peti billum, palm sugar; the 
Talingas, sima mynum, ants wax; the Tamuls, araku koondu, 
wax cover bafket; and the Chinese call theirs pe-la, white 
wax. 
The greater size ae the pe-la may be owing to culture ; 
-and the abbé says, that only two kinds of trees, the bei 
