DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 327 



their ships. Molina informs us that, at Coquimbo in 

 Chili, resin, either the product of an insect or the conse- 

 quence of an insect's biting off the buds of a particular 

 species of Origanum, is collected in large quantities. 

 The insect in question is a small smooth red caterpillar 

 about half an inch long, which changes into a yellowish 

 moth with black stripes upon the wings {Phal. ceraria^ 

 Molina). Early in the spring vast numbers of these ca- 

 terpillars collect on the branches of the Ckila, where 

 they form their cells of a kind of soft white wax or resin, 

 in which they undergo their transformations. This wax, 

 which is at first very white, but by degrees becomes yel- 

 low and finally brown, is collected in autumn by the in- 

 habitants, who boil it in water, and make it up into little 

 cakes for market 3 . 



Honey, another well-known product of insects, has 

 lost much of its importance since the discovery of sugar; 

 yet at the present day, whether considered as a delicious 

 article of food, or the base of a wholesome vinous beve- 

 rage of home manufacture, it is of no mean value even 

 in this country ; and in many inland parts of Europe, 

 where its saccharine substitute is much dearer than with 

 us, few articles of rural economy, not of primary impor- 

 tance, would be dispensed with more reluctantly. In the 

 Ukraine some of the peasants have 4> or 500 bee-hives, 

 and make more profit of their bees than of corn b ; and 

 in Spain the number of bee-hives is said to be incredi- 

 ble ; a single parish priest was known to possess 5000 c . 



% Molina's Chili, i. 1 74. 



b Communications to the Board of Agricult. vii. 286. 



c Mills on Bees, 77. 



