684 THE CHINESE WHITE WAX INSECT. 
tallow” of China is obtained from the seeds or kernels which 
grow upon the so-called ‘* Tallow Tree.” But he also states that 
this tallow is hardened by a very hard white wax brought from the 
western or northwestern provinces of China, which is the very 
wax described by Mr. Cooper. The ‘tallow’ is not a wax in 
chemical constitution, and is the product of a shrub known as 
Stillingia sebifera. Our American myrtle wax (bayberry tallow) 
is a solid fat melting at about 118° F. and contains a large quan- 
tity of palmitic and a small quantity of myristic acid (Moore, 
Sill. Jour: [2] xxwiii,113.) 
From its high melting point and general physical and chemical 
properties we might infer that the white wax of China was the 
product of the Coccus, rather than of the plant on which it feeds, 
seeing the properties alludéd to are more like those of bees’ wax 
than of vegetable wax, known to be such. But of this we still 
lack the proof. Probably some of your entomological corres- 
pondents may know the wax producing, or provoking, Coccus. * 
Our quotation from Mr. Cooper’s instructive volume is as fol- 
lows :— 
“On the third day we entered the white wax country so named 
from its producing the famous white wax of Szchuan, which has 
been erroneously called vegetable wax. This district was less un- 
dulating than that of the tea gardens, and presented to the eye a 
of Szchuan, and ranks in importance second only to that of silk. 
Its production is not attended with much labor or risk to the cul- 
tivator. The eggs of the insect which produces the wax are an- 
“ white wax eggs.” The egg clusters which were described to me 
* Westwood (Modern Classification of Insects ii. p. 449) writes thus: “The Coccus 
ceriferus Fabr., described by Anderson in his letters from Madras (1781) and by Pear- 
son in the Phil. Trans. 1794, is employed in the production of a white wax, the body of 
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