232 INSECTS AND MAN 



country, near Ningyuen. At the end of April the culti- 

 vators carefully collect the eggs of this insect and carry 

 them to Kia-ting-fou, fourteen days' march on the other 

 side of a chain of mountains. The route is very difficult, 

 and is accomplished by night marches, so that the eggs may 

 not suffer from the heat ; from afar, all the lights which 

 may be seen on the winding mountain road produce a very 

 picturesque effect. For China the unique exception is 

 made of leaving the gates of Kia-ting-fou constantly open 

 during the egg-collecting season. After transportation, 

 however, the most difficult part of the business begins ; the 

 eggs have to be detached from the branches on which 

 they have been carried and placed on a tree of a different 

 species, Fraxinus chinensis, where the insects are born 

 and produce the white wax so valued by the Chinese. . . . 

 The total value of the wax harvest in Sse-tchouen is 

 estimated by Richthofen at fourteen million francs. The 

 ownership of the wax-bearing trees is very much split up ; 

 usually they belong to other peasants than those who own 

 the ground beneath their shade." 



The wax, when collected, is first dried in the sun, and 

 here we may mention that some authorities considered the 

 wax to be a secretion of the insect and others looked upon 

 it as an exudation from the trees ; the former, which has 

 always been the Chinese opinion, is the correct one, Pela v 

 wax being analogous to beeswax. The dried wax is then 

 placed on a linen sheet over the mouth of an earthenware 

 vessel, which, iruturn, is plunged in boiling water: this 

 causes the finer wax to melt and pass through the linen 

 (which acts as a filter) into the earthenware vessel where 

 it collects. The coarser wax which remains on the linen 

 is put into silken sacks, and thrown into boiling oil, with 

 which it combines and forms a fit substance for the manu- 

 facture of candles. The pure wax is used in China much 

 as beeswax is used with us; it is perfectly white, and 

 without taste or smell, not greasy to the touch, and, in the 



