It is said of our _Cicada septemdecim_, the so-called, but very improperly, “Seventeen-year Locust,” that, when they first leave the earth, when they are plump and full of juices, they have been made use of in the manufacture of soap. The larva of a Chinese species of Cicada, the _Flata limbata_, which scarcely exceeds the domestic fly in size, forms a sort of grease, which adheres to the branches of trees and hardens into wax. In autumn the natives scrape this substance, which they call _Pela_, from off the trees, melt, purify, and form it into cakes. It is white and glossy in appearance, and, when mixed with oil, is used to make candles, and is said to be superior to the common wax for use. The physicians employ it in several diseases; and the Chinese, as we are informed by the Abbe Grosier, when they are about to speak in public, or when any occasion is likely to occur on which it may be necessary to have assurance and resolution, eat an ounce of it to prevent swoonings or palpitations of the heart.[880] On the large cheese-like cakes of this wax, hanging in the grocers’ and tallow-chandlers’ shops at Hankow, are often seen the inscription written: “It mocks at the frost, and rivals the snow.” The price, in 1858, was forty dollars a picul, or about fifteen pence a pound.[881] The Greeks, notwithstanding their veneration for the Cicada, made these insects an article of food, and accounted them delicious. Aristotle says, the larva, when it is grown in the earth, and become a tettigometra (pupa), is the sweetest; when changed to the tettix, the males at first have the best flavor, but after impregnation the females are preferred, on account of their white ova.[882] Athenæus and Aristophanes also mention their being eaten; and Ælian is extremely angry with the men of his age that an animal sacred to the Muses should be strung, sold, and greedily devoured.[883] The _Cicada septemdecim_, Mr. Collinson in 1763 said, was eaten by the Indians of America, who plucked off the wings and boiled them.[884] Osbeck tells us that the _Cicada chinensis_, along with the _Buprestis maxima_, and several species of Butterflies, is made an article of commerce by the Chinese, being sold in their shops.[885] Fulgoridæ--Lantern-flies.