SUBFAMILY tACHARDIINAE 149 



and Wanting in all others, and when present are similar in form. The 

 profemora are never greatly enlarged and the prothoracic legs are never 

 fitted for digging. The body is never provided with an anal cleft and 

 opercula, anal lobes and anal setae, octacerores, pilacerores, or ceratubae. 

 The anal ring is distinct, located on an anal process in the second 

 nymphal stage and bears six to ten anal ring setae. The caudal end of 

 the rectum is not chitinized, forming a rectal tube provided with one or 

 more rings of anacerores excreting a long glassy tube of wax. The 

 caudal abdominal segment is not short, narrow, and projecting. 



The male has four ocellanae, two dorsal and two ventral. The ab- 

 domen is not provided with long lateral filaments and bears two long 

 slender caudal threads of wax. The wings are present and fully formed 

 or wanting. The stylus is distinct, about one-half the length of the 

 abdomen. 



This subfamily includes the lac insects of commerce all of 

 which originally belonged to the genus Tachardia and previously 

 to the genus Carteria. There are probably few of the people who 

 are constantly using shellac who are aware as to how and where it 

 is obtained and that it is an excretion of a minute insect. The 

 wax or lac as it is usually called, from which is derived the shellac 

 of commerce, is excreted by the lac insect, Tachardia lacca. Its 

 chief home is the forests of India, Burma, and Assam. While the 

 best quality of lac comes from Burmah and Assam, lac is also 

 produced in Ceylon, Siam, China, and some of the islands of the 

 East Indies. There are about twenty-five thousand tons collected 

 annually in the central provinces of India. This lac has a valuation 

 of about a million and a quarter dollars. All of the lac of commerce 

 is produced on the forest trees in a wild state and no effort is made 

 to produce it artificially or to cultivate it as is done in the case 

 of the cochineal insect. The lac insect lives upon a large number 

 of species of trees, at least sixty according to Froggatt, the most 

 of which belong to the genus Ficus, fig. 



The following account as to the preparation and use of lac 

 is taken from Froggatt. ''The different kinds of lac are known 

 in commerce under many names. Stick lac is the natural produc- 

 tion encrusting the twigs just as it is obtained from the forest; 

 seed lac is the stick lac after it has been ground up in water to 

 extract the coloring matter out of the insect, known as lac dye; 

 button and shell lac are prepared from the seed lac by melting the 

 latter. Other forms, such as garnet and liver lac, are produced 

 from different qualities of shellac, the color often differing consid- 

 erably in the various districts, while some of the fine bright orange 



