798 PROCEEDINGS OF THE THIRD ENTOMOLOGICAL MEETING 



and will improve the appearance of the washed product. An improve- 

 ment like this is expected to effect considerable savings and will avoid 

 the possibility of undetected damage brought about by pests to stored 

 produce and will remove the possibility of the material becoming blocky 

 — a thing which no manufacturer would care to buy. {Vide Agri. Jour. 

 India, Vol. XIII, Part III, July 1918, p. 410, and Report on the Progress 

 of Agriculture in India for 1917-18, pp. 98-99.) If this change will ma- 

 terialize into practice it will then be possible to popularize the use of 

 washed and treated seed-lac more extensively than has been the case 

 in the past. It is a queer anomaly that trades people should give pre- 

 ference to an adulterated product over an unadulterated one. Shellac, 

 however pure it may be, contains from 5 to 10 per cent, of foreign ingre- 

 dients such as yellow orpiment and colophony — the trade refraction 

 being 4-5 per cent.— and still it is preferred to seed-lac which is pure. But 

 now as lac has come to be extensively used for military purposes, it 

 will be possible to popularize the use of the pure material seed-lac over 

 shellac, I think production of standardized material will obviate the 

 necessity of adopting iodine tests for shellac which the manufacturers 

 have to do before making purchases. Continuous trial shipments of 

 standardised and treated seed-lac will have to be made before the product 

 will be adopted for commercial purposes. Hitherto, as the factories 

 are few and are spread at considerable distances from each other, it has 

 not been possible to effect any changes in this direction. By the new 

 uses that are now being found for lac, it will be possible to restrict the 

 use of the adulterated material. 

 The uses of shellac are: — 

 Indian. — Bangles, toys, goldsmiths' work, sealing wax, varnishes, 



pohshes, grinding atones, lacquer ware, hilts to swords. 



Foreign. — Insulating material, gramophone records, lithographic 



inks, varnishes, polishes, paper varnishes, confectionery, 



top hats, strengthening to steel, shrapnels, for pattern work, 



shoe blacking, imitation ivory, backs to brushes and combs, 



tooth brushes, poker-chips, white insulated goods. 



The waste, together with other refuse, is utilized within the country for 



the manufacture of bangles and toys. A great development awaits 



the toy industry. Hitherto cheap German and Austrian toys have 



flooded England and America along with the produce of Holland, consis- 



tmg primarily of compressed paper material. But with the proper 



organization of the industry it will be possible to popularize the use of 



light lac toys which will be cheaper and less liaWe to breakage than the 



imported ones. In India there is some field for the development of 



polishes and varnishes. The raw ingredients necessary to manufacture 



