;:j4 improvements in India. March 7. 



in any part of the world can be obtained at as low a 

 price ? 



In prosecuting the experiments on cochineal, and ex- 

 amining the various insects of the coccus tribe that could 

 be met with in India, a great variety of this clafs of in- 

 sects were found that fed on a vast diversity of plants j 

 and as it is alrtady known that many varieties of these 

 insects are useful in arts, it is highly probable, that it 

 will be found, at some future period, that every one of 

 them may be converted to some purpose very beneficial to 

 man. Besides the kermes, cultivated to such a great ex- 

 tent in Spain, under the name of grnna, and the cochineal., 

 which has long formed one of the most valuable produc- 

 tions of the Spanifli settlements in the new world, Dr 

 Anderson has lately discovered, that it is from an insect 

 nearly allied to this tribe that the Chinese extract a valu- 

 able kind of lac, which they call pe-/a, of which a full 

 account is contained in the following letter : 



Of the pe-la, or Chinese wax. 



Extract of a letter from Sir Joseph Banks, bart. to Dr 



Anderson, Madras. 



" I now resume my pen again to renew the correspon- 

 dence, on finding, by the perusal of your letter to the go- 

 vernor and council of Fort St George, dated November 

 24. 1789, that you have made a discovery which carries 

 with it a probability of future advantage, both to the com- 

 pany and yourself. 



" I mean, as you will readily understand, the animal 

 that produces a substance similar to, or rather exactly the 

 same as the pe-/a of the Chinese, to which article in your 

 letter I refer. 



