Anonymous

“ Nothing could be more beautiful than the situation of Guaxaca, capital of the province of that name. Standing in the midst of fertile and extensive plains, at the foot of a majestic mountain range, and watered by a fine and noble river, this 118city is richly supplied with corn and fruits of all kinds, at the same time that its environs supply a most favourable site for the culture of the cochineal. The air, continually refreshed by easterly breezes in the morning, and westerly in the evening, is pure and delicious, like that of a May morning. ”

“ While the worm is spinning its cocoon it takes no food, and as it is continually emitting silk, its body gradually diminishes to less than half its original length. When its labour is completed it rests awhile, and then once more throws off its skin; but it is no longer a caterpillar; its form is changed into a chrysalis, or aurelia, with a smooth brown skin, and pointed at one end. A few days after the insect has finished spinning, the cocoons will be ready to be unwound. Our amateur silkworm cultivator then takes the cocoons out of the paper cones and separates the outer floss silk. ”

“ When the insect is prepared to make its escape and be changed into its perfect state, it discharges from its mouth a large quantity of liquid, with which the upper end of the case is so perfectly softened as to enable the moth to work its way out in a very short time; an operation which is always performed during the night. In their perfect state these insects do not exist many days: the female deposits her eggs in the branches of the tree she may be resting on, to which they adhere firmly by means of the gluten they are covered with when newly laid. ”

“ The hard and brittle texture of the gall-nut also, so different from the substance of our own oak-galls, would be still more likely to deceive, and indeed has deceived a highly respectable writer, who declares from his observation of the dried galls of commerce, that the nut is the fruit of a tree, and not a mere excrescence. ”

“ Over this chrysalis, or rather over the cell in which it is contained, the nurse-bees brood until the warmth of their bodies penetrates, and assists in producing the last change of the insect within. The cocoon, by degrees, becomes attached to the interior of the cell like a lining, and the bee, having its parts gradually unfolded, begins at length to cut its way through the cover of the cell. It is now a perfect bee, and capable at once of taking its part in the labours of the hive. ”

“ Unlike the queen of the hive, the foundress of this colony secretes wax, and does so even more abundantly than one of her workers.
2. The rapid formation of wax in the case of humble bees is very remarkable. Huber confined a number of them, and fed them during many days with pollen only; they produced no wax, constructed no cells, and laid no eggs; but on giving them honey, wax was produced in a few minutes, and the work of the colony proceeded.
The interior of a humble bee’s nest has none of the beauty and regularity of the hive. ”

“ Those hives which are designed for winter stock must be set apart and weighed. A common straw hive when empty weighs from five to six pounds, an ordinary swarm about four pounds, the wax of a full hive two or three pounds, the farina in the cells one pound, making in all fifteen pounds. A stock, therefore, to be secure, must weigh double that amount, that is, it should not contain less than fifteen pounds of honey. The bees, it is true, may exist through the winter on a smaller quantity than this, but this would depend very much on the nature of the season ”

“ The uses of silk in the webs and nests of common spiders are too obvious to be dwelt on, but there is a most clever and surprising adaptation of the same material by several foreign species of spider which must be briefly stated. In the Ionian islands, and also in the West Indies, there are found certain spiders, commonly known as trap-door spiders, which make a cylindrical nest in the earth, and cover the entrance with a door of their own construction, framed of alternate layers of silk and earth, and fastened to the opening by a hinge of stout silk. ”

“ They indeed come forth in variety of colours, their wings bedropped with gold and scarlet, yet are they but the beings of a summer’s day; both their life and beauty quickly vanish, and they leave no remembrance after them ”

“ MANUFACTURE OF GUM LAC BY THE LAC INSECT. Another insect of the same family as the cochineal, prepares a substance called gum lac, which is used as a dye, and also as a varnish. This is the lac insect, (coccus lacca,) found on several kinds of trees in the East Indies, especially in the uncultivated mountains on both sides the Ganges, where it is produced in such abundance, that were the consumption ten times greater than it is, the markets might be readily supplied. ”

“ The fierceness of spiders, and their propensity to destroy each other, were 62noticed as unfitting them to be bred and reared together. On distributing about five thousand spiders in cells, in companies of about fifty or a hundred, it was found that the larger spiders quickly killed and ate the smaller, until there were only one or two occupiers of each cell. The silk of the spider was also found inferior in lustre and strength to that of the silkworm, and had the disadvantage of being incapable of winding off the ball, but must necessarily be carded. ”

“ If the insect finds that one of the larger nerves of the leaf is so strong as to resist her efforts, she weakens it by gnawing it here and there half through. What engineer could act more sagaciously? To form one of the conical or horn-shaped rolls, which are not composed of a whole leaf, but of a long triangular portion cut out of the edge, some other manœuvres are requisite. Placing herself upon the leaf, the caterpillar cuts out with her jaws the piece which is to compose her roll. ”

“ The female, when about to lay her eggs, becomes completely glued to the branch by a semi-pellucid liquid, which accumulates round the body, and hardens by exposure to the air. This is the gum lac, the original use of which is to form a cell for the young. When the eggs are laid, the parent insect becomes a mere lifeless bag of an oval shape, containing a small quantity of beautiful red liquid. On this liquid the young insects feed as soon as they come to life ”

“ Another useful insect substance is a kind of resin, or more properly speaking, wax, which by adulteration with a resinous substance is made heavier for the market. This is found in the province of Coquimbo, South America, and is the production of a caterpillar, which feeds on a shrub called chilca, a species of origanum. The caterpillars are of a red colour, and about half an inch in length. They appear in great numbers in the beginning of the spring on the branches of the chilca, where they form their cells of a kind of soft wax. ”

“ A few words respecting the excrescences they produce, may therefore assist our ideas of the proceedings of the valuable insect described above. Very few persons are unacquainted with oak-apples, or small roundish, flattened bodies growing on the leaves of the oak. These are sometimes tinged with brown, or pink, or pale yellow, so as to appear not much unlike very small apples, attached to the leaf. Each of these curious bodies is formed by a small fly of the same nature as that which forms the gall-nut. ”

“ An inferior kind of wax is made by those large bees called humble bees, whose gay colours and booming flight make them so well known in our gardens.
FEMALE HUMBLE BEE.
Early in spring, as soon as the catkins of the willows are in flower, a large solitary female may be seen about them collecting honey and pollen. She is the only survivor of the former year’s colony, and is the foundress of a new one. Her first care on awaking from her winter’s sleep is to excavate a hollow in the earth for her nest, which 90is often above a foot under the surface, and is entered by a passage or gallery. ”

“ THE MANUFACTURE OF WAX. The honey-comb of a bee is a beautiful and highly curious object, and is composed of wax, a substance which man, with all his skill, is unable to fabricate. Whether the hive be natural or 78artificial, the plan of its construction is much the same. A number of honey-combs, chiefly composed of six-sided cells, regularly applied to each other’s sides, and arranged in two layers, are fixed to the upper part and sides of the interior of the hive. ”

“ A nopalerie is in perfection six years, after which the insects are taken away and the plants cut down.
The cochineal harvest takes place every year as soon as the young insects begin to run about. Assembling his friends, old and young, the owner of the cochineal ground enters it at break of day with a crowd of men, women, and children, provided with knives six inches long and two wide, and also with dishes and with baskets. The blade of the knife is rounded at the top, so as to injure neither the insect nor the plant ”

“ From this time the gall-nut no longer derives from the tree those juices which were necessary for the nourishment of the insect, but dries up, and loses the greater part of those qualities which make it valuable in commerce. The Aga of the district takes care that the cultivators traverse frequently, at the time of the harvest, the hills and mountains which are covered with this oak. He has an interest in obtaining galls of good quality, because he levies a tax on the produce. ”

“ Rude and clumsy as their nests may at first appear, it is just the sort of workmanship best calculated for their wants. They do not, indeed, choose the smooth and flexible osier-twigs which we should think necessary for basket-making, but they contrive by means of brittle, dead, forked sticks, to plait together a strong bristling out-work, within which they interweave a finer basket-work of fibrous roots, rude indeed, but not inelegant or unsuitable. ”

“ There is scarce anything among the various wonders which the animal creation affords more admirable than the variety of changes which the silkworm undergoes; but the curious texture of that silken covering with which it surrounds itself 52when it becomes a moth, and arrives at the perfection of its animal life, vastly surpasses what is made by other animals of this class. All the caterpillar kind do indeed undergo changes like those of the silkworm, and the beauty of many of them in their butterfly state greatly exceeds it ”

“ Nearly the whole of the wax employed in Europe, and the greater part of that consumed in America, is the produce of the common hive bee, but in the latter country the produce of wild bees is also extensively used. Wax forms an important branch of trade and commerce in all those countries where the Roman Catholic religion prevails, being extensively used in the festivals and rites of that church. ”

“ An acre, or an acre and a half of land, when planted with nopals, is sufficient to keep one Indian well employed during six months of the year. The plants should be so situated as to receive the full influence of the morning sun, which is of great consequence to the welfare of the cochineal. Every part of the ground should be as neat as a well-kept garden, and every injurious insect watched for and destroyed. ”