6 Mr. H. J. Carter on the Natural History of the Lac-Insect. 



female insect, from its locomotive form to its ultimate develop- 

 ment in the fixed state, is chiefly effected by an enlargement 

 and elongation of the body between the mouth, on the one hand, 

 and the parts from which the three white tufts project, on the 

 other ; for the oral extremity simply becomes elongated, and the 

 three other openings of the body remain as near together, in the 

 resinous incrustation, at the end as they were at the commence- 

 ment. 



Of what the white powder on the tracheae consists, I am 

 ignorant, further than that it does not dissolve in spirits of wine 

 like the lac, which, on the other hand, appears to be a secretion 

 from the skin generally, analogous to the chitinous one which 

 would be required under other circumstances. 



Male Insect. 



On the 8th of September I visited the Custard-apple tree 

 again, to see how the incrusted young were progressing ; and, 

 on close examination of the parts where they were most con- 

 gregated, observed, here and there, little red insects actively 

 crawling over them, which insects appeared so like the original 

 young ones, that I thought they must be a few stragglers of a later 

 evolution ; but on inspecting them more particularly, they were 

 observed to possess much larger antennse ; and therefore it was 

 concluded that they were males, which afterwards proved to be 

 the case. Several of them were collected for description, and a 

 small portion of one of the branches, more or less covered by 

 the incrus'ted young, brought away, to show how the secretion 

 of the lac was progressing. 



The male (PI. I. fig. 5) is a little larger than the young ones 

 at their exit from the parent ; it has larger antennae, which are 

 hairy-plumose (fig. 7) and consist of seven articulations, not 

 including the two basal ones; four eyes, two lateral and two 

 underneath the head (fig. 6) ; two long hair-like appendages, 

 covered with white powder, proceeding from the penultimate 

 segment above (fig. 5 6 6); and a beak- like horny extension (a) 

 from the last segment, which is curved a little downwards and 

 composed of two members (fig. 9 a, b), an upper and a lower one, 

 both grooved, and forming together a cylindrical channel, through 

 which the semen is conveyed into the female. 



Thus the changes which the larva undergoes during incar- 

 ceration, to produce the male, consist in an enlargeinent and 

 alteration in form of the antennae ; in the differentiation of the 

 head, and the addition of two large eyes underneath it, which 

 appear to be for the purpose of enabling the male, as he crawls 

 over the lac covering the feuiales, to find out the apertures in it 

 that lead to the vulvae ; in the addition of the male organ, and 



