164 
THE MOPANE-TKEE. 
Chap. VIII. 
The Mopane-tree (Bauhinia) is remarkable for the little shade 
its leaves afford. They fold together and stand nearly perpen- 
Mopane or Bauhinia leaves, with the insect and its edible secretions. 
diciilar during the heat of the day, so that only the shadow of 
their edges conies to the ground. On these leaves the small larvas 
of a winged insect appear covered over with a sweet gummy sub¬ 
stance. The people coUect this in gTeat quantities, and use it 
as food and the lopane—large caterpillars three inches long, 
which feed on the leaves, and are seen strung together—share 
the same fate. 
* I am favoured with. Mr. Westwood’s remarks on this insect as follows 
Taylor Institution, Oxford, July 9, 1857. 
“ The insect (and its secretion) on the leaves of the Bauhinia, and which is 
eaten hy the Africans, proves to he a species of Psylla, a genus of small very 
active Homoptera, of which we have one very common species in the hox ; hut 
our species, P. huxi, emits its secretion in the shape of very long white cotton¬ 
like filaments ; but there is a species in New Holland, found on the leaves of 
the Eucalyptus, which emits a secretion very similar to that of Dr. Livingstone’s 
species. This Australian secretion (and its insect originator) is known hy the 
name of Wo-me-la, and, like Dr. Livingstone’s, it is scraped off the leaves and 
eaten hy the aborigines as a saccharine dainty. The insects found beneath the 
secretion, brought home hy Dr. Livingstone, are in the pupa state, being 
flattened, with large scales at the sides of the body, enclosing the future wings 
of the insect. The body is pale yellowish coloured, with dark-hrown spots. 
It will he impossible to describe the species technically until we receive the 
perfect insect. The secretion itself is flat and circular, apparently deposited 
in concentric rings, gradually increasing in size till the patches are about a 
quarter or a third of an inch in diameter. 
“ Jno. 0. Westwood.” 
