The wax first appears as a white coating on the under sides of the boughs and twigs, and resembles very much sulphate of quinine, or a covering of snow. It gradually spreads over the whole branch, and attains, after three months, a thickness of about a quarter of an inch. When the white deposit becomes visible on the branches, the farmer may be seen going the round of his trees, carefully belabouring each stump with a heavy wooden club, in order, as he says, to bring to ground the _la-kou_, or “wax dog,” a declared enemy of the wax insect. This probably refers to the beetle-mother. This clubbing of the stumps was done during the heat of the day, when the wax insects are said to have a firm hold of the bark.
After the lapse of a hundred days from the placing of the insects on the wax tree, the deposit is complete. The branches are then lopped off, and as much of the wax as possible removed by hand. This is placed in an iron pot of boiling water, and the wax, melting, rises to the surface, is skimmed off and placed in a round mould, whence it emerges as the white wax of commerce. Where it is found impossible to remove the wax by hand, twigs and branches are thrown into the pot, so that this wax is darker and inferior. Finally, not satisfied that all the wax has been collected, the operator takes the insects, which have meantime sunk to the bottom of the pot, and placing them in a bag, squeezes them until they have given up the last drop of their valuable product. They are then--an ignominious ending to their short and industrious career--thrown to the pigs!
On the 27th of August, 1884, branches of the _ligustrum_ coated with wax were brought to me. On removing the wax I found, close to the bark, a number of minute brown bags, evidently the male _cocci_ in a state of metamorphosis. I examined the undisturbed branches from day to day, and on the 4th September I observed quite a number of white hair-like substances rising above the surface of the wax deposit. These ultimately proved to be the white forked tails of the male insects forcing their way up from the bark, and dislodging, as they emerged, small quantities of the wax. They were now provided with long wings, and, after tarrying for a time on the branches, flew away. By the 13th of September they had all disappeared, leaving visible the tunnels from the bark, upwards, by which they had escaped.