06 INSECT- WHITE- WAX OF CHINA. 



1853. According to the author of the Pun-tsaou-kang-muh the 



Collection of ground under the trees must be kept very clean in order to 

 Insect Wax. g uar( j against ants devouring the insects. Fixing themselves 

 on the branches the young insects speedily commence the forma- 

 tion of a white waxy secretion, which becoming harder suggests 

 the idea of the trees being covered with hoar frost. The insect 

 itself becomes [gradually imbedded? or] as the Chinese authois 

 say cJianged into wax. The branches of the tree are now 

 scraped, the collected matter constituting the crude wax. The 

 time of the collection probably varies in different districts, some 

 authors giving June and others August, as the period at which 

 the wax harvest takes place. At the latter period (August or 

 September) the waxy matter containing the insects becomes so 

 firmly attached to the tree that its removal would be attended 

 with much difficulty, and it is in the wax thus left and at this 

 period that a sort of case or cocoon ("purplish envelope," 

 Macgowan) is formed, 1 in which the eggs of the insect are 

 deposited. This nest or cocoon, which is stated to be of the 

 size of a rice grain, gradually increases until in the following 

 spring it becomes as large as a hen's egg (!), suggesting when 

 attached to the branch the appearance of a fruit. 2 The 

 cocoons, called La-chung or La-tsze, which inclose multitudes 

 of eggs, are removed, sometimes together with a piece of the 

 branch on which they are fixed, and reserved for the further 

 propagation of the insect. 



Food. Respecting the tree or trees upon which the wax-insect feeds 



(for like the Coccus lacca there may be several trees that support it), 

 it is evident that our information is as yet extremely defective. 

 Mr. Fortune entertains great doubts whether the insect really 

 feeds as reputed on any species of Rhus, Ligustrum, or Hibiscus. 



1 Probably the inflated body of the mature female insect is here re- 

 ferred to. 



8 In the Pun-tsaou-kang-muh the expression used signifies fowl's-head. 

 Now it is quite certain that the bodies of the female Cocci received in Mr! 

 Lockhart's specimen had attained their full development. What, then, can 

 the Chinese author mean by this monstrous aftergrowth ? Can he have 'con- 

 fused with it the packets of eggs suspended to the tree for the propagation 

 of the insect ? 



