MAY 22 1897 

 Vol, II.] [No. 3. 



INDIAN MUSEUM NOTES. 



WHITE INSECT WAX IN INDIA. 



[ With one Plate.'] 



In the early part of 1891 the Trustees of the Indian Museum under- 

 ^ ,. . took, at the suggestion of the Government of 



India in the Revenue and Agricultural De- 

 partment, to furnish a report upon the subject of white insect wax in 

 India. Attention had previously been drawn to the subject by the 

 authorities of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, as there is said to be 

 a considerable demand for the wax owing to its property of " breaking the 

 grain" of otherwise crystalline substances and thus rendering them suit- 

 able for candle-making. The following report therefore has been drawn 

 up in the Entomological Section of the Indian Museum, and is founded, 

 partly upon the specimens and replies furnished by the Forest Officers of 

 the Central Provinces and Bengal, in answer to a circular letter addressed 

 to them by the Inspector General of Forests, and partly upon information 

 gathered from specimens, already preserved in the Museum collection, 

 and from the papers previously published upon the subject. Help in the 

 chemical and botanical examination of the specimens has been kindly 

 afforded by Mr. T. H. Holland of the Geological Survey and Dr. D. Praiii 

 of the Botanical Gardens. 



The white wax of commerce is produced by one of the Coceidge insects, 

 The occurrence of the insect in known to entomologists as Eriocerus pela, 

 ^^^^^- This insect has long been cultivated in China, 



where it yields a large amount of wax, which is used chiefly in candle- 

 making, though the extent of the industry is said to have fallen off 

 considerably of late years, owing to the introduction into China of 

 kerosine oil, which has largely taken the place of the candles previously 

 in use.^ So far as our present information goes, the insect which pro- 

 duces white wax in China does not occur in India, but it has long been 

 known that an insect, closely related to it, is occasionally to be met with, 

 especially in the jungles of Southern and Central India. This insect is the 

 one referred to by Dr. Watt in his paper^ on candles. It was originally 

 described in the year 1790, under the name of Coccus ceriferus,^ and is 

 known to modern entomologists as C^/'t»jij/«s^e* cen^(2r?<s.* It produces a 



^ Hosie : Three Years in Western China, London, 1890. 



^ Vide Dr. Watt's Dictionary of the Economic Products of India. 



^ J. Anderson : Monographia Cocci ceriferi, Madras, 1790. 



* Siguoret : Ann. Soc. Enfc. France (5), vol. ii, p. 40 (1872). 



