DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 187 
consequence 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 caterpillars collect on the 
branches of the Chi/a, 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 yellow and finally 
brown, is collected in autumn by the inhabitants, who boil it in water, and 
make it up into little cakes for market. 
Honey, another well-known product of insects, has lost much of its im- —— 
portance 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 
beverage of home manufacture, it is ofno 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 
importance, would be dispensed with more reluctantly. In the Ukraine 
some of the peasants have 400 or 500 bee-hives, and make more profit of 
their bees than of corn? ; and in Spain the number of bee-hives is said to 
be incredible ; a single parish priest was known to possess 5000.° 
The domesticated or hive-bee, to which we are indebted for this article, 
is the same, according to Latreille in every part of Europe, except in some 
districts of Italy, where a different species (Apis ligustica of Spinola) is 
kept — the same probably that is cultivated in the Morea and the isles of 
the Archipelago.* Honey is obtained, however, from many other species 
both wild and domestic. What is called rock honey in some parts of 
America, which is as clear as water and very thin, is the produce of wild 
bees, which suspend their clusters of thirty or forty waxen cells, resembling 
a bunch of grapes, to a rock®: and in South America large quantities are 
collected from the nests built in trees by Zrigona Amalthea, and other 
species of this genus recentiy separated from Apis®; under which pro- 
bably should be included the Bamburos, whose honey, honest Robert Knox 
informs us, whole towns in Ceylon go into the woods to gather.?. Accord- 
ing to Azara, one of the chief articles of food of the Indians who live in 
the woods of Paraguay is wild honey. Captain Green observes that, in 
the island of Bourbon, where he was stationed for some time, there is a 
bee which produces a kind of honey much esteemed there. It is quite of 
a green colour, of the consistency of oil, and to the usual sweetness of 
honey superadds a certain fragrance. It is called green honey, and is 
exported to India, where it bears a high price. One of the species that 
has probably been attended to ages before our hive-bee, is Apis fusciata of 
Latreille, a kind so extensively cultivated in Egypt, that Niebuhr states he 
fell in upon the Nile, between Cairo and Damietta, with a convoy of 4000 
1 Molina’s Chili, i, 174. 
2 Communications tothe Board of Agricult. vii. 286. 
5 Mills on Bees, 77. 
* Latr. in Humboldt and Bonpland, Recueil d’Observ. de Zoologie, &c. (Paris, 
a 800, 5 Hill in Swammerdam, i. 181. note. 
atr. ubi supr. 300, 
7 Knox’s Ceylon, 25. 8 Voy. dans l Amer. Mérid. i. 162, 
® M. Latreille appears to: have described this bee under the name of Apis uni- 
color. Mém, sur les Abeilles, 8, 39. 
