HEMIPTERA. 4:3 



stem frequented by those insects, was entirely whitened by a substance or powder of that 

 colour, strewed upon it by them. The substance or powder was supposed to form the 

 white wax of the East. This substance is asserted, on the spot, to have the property, by 

 a particular manipulation, of giving in certain proportions, with vegetable oil, such 

 solidity to the composition as to render the whole equally capable of being moulded into 

 candles. The fact is ascertained, indeed, in some degree, by the simple experiment of 

 dissolving one part of this wax in three parts of olive oil made hot. The whole, when 

 cold, will coagulate into a mass, approaching to the firmness of bees' wax." 



From the accurate description and figures of the latter author, it is evident, the 

 creature that produces the white wax of China, is an imperfect insect, or technically 

 speaking, the pupa of an insect, which, in its mature state, is furnished with wings. This 

 is clearly the fact, for the rudiments of wings are visible in the figures alluded to. * 



Stoll, in his work on Cimices and Cicada;, gives a figure of this immature insect 

 under the title of Be Waldraagster (Nymphe) or La Cigale Porte Laine, fig. 144, 

 together with the winged insect at fig. 145 ; and it is on this authority the latter is 

 introduced in the annexed plate. There is, indeed, much similarity between the pupa 

 and the imago, and some striking characteristics are common to both. They agree in 

 the structure of the antennae and proboscis, or sucking trunk ; the abdomen of the winged 

 insect is also loaded with a fine white powder, and is furnished at the extremity with a 

 tuft of down and hairs, similar to that so eminently conspicuous in the pupa state. We 

 have, however, observed the white powder and tuft on the abdomen of Lystra lanata, 

 and have reason to imagine it also forms a white wax, similar to that of the present 

 species. 



Fabricius, in his Species Insectorum, described this insect as a variety of Cicada 

 limbata, which is of a light green colour, with a red margin ; that which Stoll has 

 figured, and with which this agrees, is of a pale brown, with a black margin. These are 

 the species and variety Fabricius describes, for the specimens referred to by Fabricius, 

 in the collection of Sir Joseph Banks, agree precisely with our insects. Fabricius notes 

 the habitat Africa. Stoll received the green specimen from the Island of Ceylon; the 

 pale sort from Africa. The larva we have represented is from China ; and the imago 

 was brought from the East Indies, by the late Mr. Ellis. 



* This may account for a passage in Gordons description of China, where he says, " In the plains" of 

 Houquang " are vast numbers of little worms that produce wax, in the same manner as bees do honey," if 

 we understand by worms, insects not arrived at maturity ; for the larva of Bombyx Mori, is also termed a silk 

 worm, though it belongs to the moth tribe when perfect. 



