Ifgi. improvements in India. 37 



cefsary to place the insects on the trees, in the same 

 manner 'as the cochineal insects, at the time the young 

 are ifsuing from the hulk or fkin of the mother. Branch- 

 ed hairs on the head, remarkably converging hairs from 

 the rump, and the make of the body, (which I iiave ob- 

 served in the microscope, and found different from any 

 thing of the coccus kind, but agreeing in all these re- 

 spects with the insect described by ?^Ir Keir of Patna, and 

 publKhedin the philosophic transactions for the year 1791,) 

 leave no room to doubt that it Is an insect of the same 

 genus. 



" It is diiFxult to get a quantity of the white lac, as the 

 children in the adjacent villages, and even people employ- 

 ed to gather It, in sptght of any reward, eat up the great- 

 er part 5 this lac, when newly removed from the trees, be- 

 ing replete with a watery juice of a delicious taste, and I 

 believe it Is pofsefsed of medicinal qualities very condu- 

 cive to health. I neverthelefs send half a dozen of pounds 

 weight, In its natural state, from the woods, and four pounds 

 weight melted and strained through coarse muslin, in the 

 manaer you advert to, for any experiments you may think 

 proper to make, together with a branch of the wodier 

 tree from my plantation, covered with insects, that you 

 may see the state of cultivation to which I have brought 

 them, which will be delivered to you (in a small box in 

 which they are packed) by captain Cunningham of thu 

 navy, who goes pafsenger to Europe in the Leopard 

 man of war, and has been obliging enough to take charge 

 of it. 



" At the time I wrote government, I had plants of the 

 staphylma brought into my grounds •, but fijiding It was ^ 

 small flirub or slow growth, I soon gave the preference to 

 the wodier tree, for the cultivation of this insect \ and 

 tince the receipt of your letter by the carl Coruv.allb, 



