Science papers : chiefly pharmacological and botanical / by Daniel Hanbury; edited, with a memoir, by Joseph Ince.

  • Daniel Hanbury
Date:
1876
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Science papers : chiefly pharmacological and botanical / by Daniel Hanbury; edited, with a memoir, by Joseph Ince. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

    82/572 page 66
    1853. According to tlie aul^hor of the Pun-tsaou-karig-muh the Collection of ground under the trees must be kept very clean in order to • guard against ants devouring the insects. Fixing themselves on the branches the young insects speedily commence the forma- tion of a white waxy secretion, which becoming harder suggests the idea of the trees being covered with hoar frost. The insect itself becomes [gradtially wihedded? or] as the .Chinese authors say changed into loax. The branches of the tree are now scraped, the collected matter constituting the crude wax. The time of the collection probably varies in different districts, some authors giving June and others August, as the period at which the wax harvest takes place. At the latter period (August or September) the waxy matter containing the insects becomes so firmly attached to tlie tree that its removal would be attended with much difficulty, and it is in the wax thus left and at this period that a sort of case or cocoon (purplish envelope, Macgowan) is formed,^ in which the eggs of the insect are deposited. This nest or cocoon, which is stated to be of the size of a rice grain, gradually increases until in the following spring it becomes as large as a hen's egg (!), suggesting when attached to the branch the appearance of a iruit.^ The cocoons, called La-chung or Zd-isze, which inclose multitudes of eggs, are removed, sometimes together with a piece of the branch on which they are fixed, and reserved for the further propagation of the insect. Food. Respecting the tree or trees upon which the wax-insect feeds (for like the Coccus lacca there may be several trees that support it), it is evident that our information is as yet extremely defective. Mr. Fortune entertains gTeat doubts whether the insect really feeds as reputed on any species of Rhus, Ligustrum, or Hibiscus. ^ Probably the inflated body of the mature female insect is here re- ferred to. ^ In the Pun-tsaou-kang-muh the expression used signifies fowl's-head. Now it is quite certain that the bodies of the female Cocci received in Mr. Lockhart's specimen had attained their full development. What, then, can the Chinese author mean by this monstrous aftergrowth ? Can he have con- fused with it the packets of eggs suspended to the tree for the propagation of the insect ?
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