WAX INSECTS 109 
transit great care is taken of them, the coolie travelling 
only by night or on dull days, as the sunlight matures 
the contents of the scales too rapidly. At the resting 
places the loads are unpacked, and the packets spread 
thinly in cool and shady places. Most of the coolies 
travel by way of Fulin, at which place they cross the 
Tung River, but I was informed that some make a 
more direct route by crossing the country of the inde- 
pendent Lolos, who permit them to do so on payment 
of duty. 
They reach Kia-ting-fu about the beginning of May, 
when the small packets are undone and from twenty to 
thirty scales are enclosed in a leaf of the wood oil tree 
(Aleurites cordata) in which some rough holes are 
made to allow of the escape of the insects and also 
to pass pieces of rice straw through, by means of which 
it is attached to the branch of the tree upon which 
the wax is produced. This isa species of ash (Fraxinus 
chinensis), which is grown, in a pollard form, in great 
quantities round the edges of the rice fields, and up 
to the foot of the mountains in the district around 
Kia-ting-fu. 
In fine weather the insects soon creep out of the 
scales and up the branches on to the twigs, on the under 
side of which the wax soon begins to appear. This 
gradually increases, coating the twig or branch all over, 
