﻿OR LAC INSECT* 363 



^ sides of the thorax, narrow at their insertions, growing 

 broader for two-thirds of their length, then rounded ; 

 the anterior pair is twice the size of the posterior ; a 

 strong fibre runs along their anterior margins ; they 

 lie flat, like the wings of a common fly, when it walks 

 or rests ; no hairs from the rump ; it springs most 

 actively to a considerable distance on being touched ; 

 mouth in the under part of the head ; maxillse trans- 

 verse. To-day the female insects continue issuing in 

 great numbers, and move about as on the 4th. 



December 7. The small red insects still more nu- 

 merous, and move about as before : winged insects, 

 still very few, continue active. There have been 

 fresh leaves and bits of the branches of both mimosa 

 cinerea and corinda put into the wide mouthed bottle 

 with them : they walk over them indifferently, without 

 showing any preference, nor inclination to work nor 

 copulate. I opened a cell whence I thought the winged 

 flies had come, and found several, eight or ten, more 

 in it, struggling to shake off their incumbrances : they 

 were in one of those utriculi mentioned on the 4th, 

 which ends in two mouths, shut up with fine white 

 hairs, but one of them was open for the exit of the 

 flies ; the other would no doubt have opened in due 

 time : this utriculus I found now perfectly dry, and 

 .-divided into cells by exceeding thin partitions. I 

 imagine, before any of the flies made their escape, it 

 might have contained about twenty. In these minute 

 cells with the living flies, or whence they had made 

 their escape, were small dry dark coloured compressed 

 grains, which may be the dried excrements of the 

 flies. 



'Note by the President. 



THE Hindus have six names for Lac; but they ge- 

 nerally call it Lacsha, from the multitude of small in* 

 sects, who, as they believe, discharge it from their 



