6 2 INSECT- WHITE- WAX OF CHINA. 



1853. 145 Fah. ; is soluble in ether and in alcohol ; it is imperfectly 

 saponifiable with a fixed alkali. Pressed or rubbed until it be 

 soft, it emits a peculiar odour. In the mouth it becomes soft 

 and tough, and has a bitterish taste. These properties indicate 

 it to be essentially distinct from the Chinese in sect- white- wax. 

 The description of the formation of white lac given by Dr. 

 Anderson does not accord with the best accounts of the pro- 

 duction of the Chinese wax. 1 



The wax-like substance afforded by Plata limlata is dropped 

 as a sweet sticky liquid upon the leaves of the plant on which 

 the insect feeds, so that they appear to be thinly bedewed with 

 Captain honey. " This," says Captain Hutton, " gradually accumulates, 

 Hutton. an( j > as j t p ass es from a liquid to a solid state, appears like a 

 thick coating of wax upon the leaves, but as it dries by exposure 

 to the sun and atmosphere, it hardens into a snowy white brittle 

 substance, giving the tree the appearance of being white-washed, 

 or frosted over with white sugar, like the top of a Twelfth Night 

 cake. It then cracks and falls in pieces to the ground, where 

 it soon dissolves from rain and dews and is lost." 2 This secre- 

 tion, Captain Hutton states, was found " to dissolve readily in 

 water, and when boiled and allowed to cool, a deposit of clear 

 white crystals was formed in the vessel." Neither this deposit 

 nor the crude substance could be combined with heated oil ; 

 " while the attempt to melt it on the fire without water or oil, 

 proved altogether abortive, the wax merely burning and consum- 

 ing away till it became converted into a hard and baked sub- 

 stance. Melted in water, the mixture assumed a brownish hue 

 with strong aromatic scent." Captain Hutton reasonably con- 

 cludes that the Chinese wax is not the produce of Plata lim- 

 lata? 



1 I have never met with Dr. Anderson's Monographia Cocci ceriferi 

 (Madras, 1790), where the insect according to Virey (Comptes Rendus, April 

 20, 1840, p. 666) is described and figured. 



* Note on the Flata limbata and the White Wax of China, by Capt. 

 Thomas Hutton, B.N.I., in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. 

 Calcutta, 1843, vol. xii., p. 898. 



8 The insect observed upon a privet near Turon in Cochin-China, and 

 figured by Sir George Staunton in his Account of Lord Macartney's Embassy 

 to China (Lond., 1797, 4to. vol. i. p. 353) is evidently an immature Flata. 



