786 PROCEEDINGS OF THE THIRD ENTOMOLOGICAL MEETING 



Africa and to some extent in Egypt. That the industry is an important- 

 one in Indo-China (Tonlcin, etc.) is shown by the fact that a detailed 

 account of cultivation, refinement and manufacture of lac is given in 

 Bulletin Economique de L'Indo Chine, No. 116, November-December 

 1915, pp. 872-944. Here the methods of refinement are very much 

 like those adopted in this country, excepting that a wider use is made 

 of the essences obtained from the bye-products of lac. The writer in 

 the bulletin quoted above has summarized the industry in Tonkin and 

 has largely drami upon the Lac Bulletm issued by me in 1912. The 

 processes of refinement in that country appear to be the same as those 

 adopted in this country and it is rather strange to see that the methods 

 of manufacturing shellac adopted in that country are as antiquated as 

 those adopted in this country and seem to be a copy of those adopted 

 in this country from times remote. 



Besides the lac produced in India, there is another kind of resin 

 produced in Madagascar by Gascardia madagascarensis, Targioni- 

 Tozzetti (Tar. Tozzetti, p. 425, 1894). This fact was first brought into 

 prominence by M. A. Gascard in 1893 (Contribution a V etude des Gommes 

 Laques des Indes et de Madagascar, B^edit. Sci. Paris, also Bull. Soc. 

 Ent. Italy, Vol. XXVI, pp. 457-464, 1894). But the msect producing 

 this differs considerably from that producing lac in structural 

 details. 



Lac was first sought after when the prices of cochmeal rose high. 

 As is known cochineal is used for dyeing silk and even now, when the- 

 prices of the colouring matter are very high, it is still used for giving 

 those delicate shades to silk which cannot be done with sjaithetic dyes.. 

 In the begmning, lac met with the game fate as tea, where the decoction 

 was thro'RTi away and the boiled leaves were used for chewmg. In this 

 case the resm was not utihzed commercially and was considered a waste 

 product m much the same light as lac dye has come to be considered 

 now-a-days. From 1814 lac-dye began to be exported in increasing 

 quantities. The maximum was reached in the years 1822, 1824 and 

 1826 when 760,729 lb. were exported. The exports began to dechne 

 rapidly from 1882-1883 until it became i^ractically extinct in 1896-1897. 

 In 1900 the total quantity .of lac-dye exported was only a ton. Corre- 

 sponding to this decrease, the resin in the form of shellac has been rising 

 continuously. The jSgures for the twelve years 1905-1916 have been 

 already given above. 



From those figures it will be seen that over 591,702 lb. of shellac- 

 worth 3.25,43,610 nq^ees were exported from the port of Calcutta only. 

 Had such figures been available for the other Indian ports, Bombay, 

 Madras and Karachi, it would be safe to reckon the total production' 



