ceraceous

With regard to another species of insect, Dr Macgowan states, that the insect-wax of China, of which 400,000 pounds are produced annually, is not, as has long been believed, a 'saliva or excrement,' but 'that the insect undergoes what may be styled a ceraceous degeneration, its whole body being permeated by the peculiar produce in the same manner as the Coccus cacti is by carmine.'