96 
HALF IiOUKS WITH INSECTS. [Packard. 
two orifices of the ducts, while the ducts themselves as well 
as the glands are absent, and the two other systems are 
much less developed than in the workers. In the drones 
not even the orifices of the lower cephalic system could be 
found.” 
We may now consider the other wax-producing insects 
whose products, at first found in such minute quantities, go 
to swell the wealth of nations, as in Great Britain alone 
about $1,000,000 worth of wax is used. While there is 
true vegetable wax formed on the berries of our Candlemas 
bush or Bayberrv (Myrica) yet the pela wax of China is se¬ 
creted by a certain kind of Coccus, or bark-louse. Westwood 
in his “Modern Classification of Insects” (vol. ii, p. 449) 
tells us that the Coccus ceriferus Fabr., described by An¬ 
derson in his letters from Madras (1781), and by Pearson in 
the “London Philosophical Transactions,” 1794, is employed 
in the production of a white wax, the body of the female 
being enveloped in a thick and solid coat of it. We have 
w r ith us certain kinds of bark lice which secrete a woolly 
mass which envelops their body. Such is the mealy bug 
found upon our house plants, and to which we shall again 
refer in subsequent pages. 
We have glanced at some of the relations of insects to 
ourselves, and if some memories not altogether of an agree¬ 
able nature have been awakened, yet upon the whole it will 
be felt that these little beings serve some good purpose in 
the world, and minister in many ways to our personal com¬ 
fort. 
32 
