Bati—Ldentification of the Animals and Plants of India. . 331 
places, and wear out all their strength in what may be called mining 
operations, which are indescribably toilsome, and conducted with 
secrecy ; but the Indian ants construct for themselves a cluster of tiny 
dwelling-houses, seated, not on sloping or level grounds, where they 
could easily be inundated, but on steep and lofty eminences,”’” &c., &c. 
The above with its context affords a good description of Indian white 
ants, or termites, which, unlike true ants, have soft, defenceless bodies, 
and have therefore to protect themselves by their earthworks. Besides 
constructing the well-known so-called ant-hills, they, when extending 
the range of their foraging grounds, protect every step of their progress 
by covered passages, built up of minute pellets of moistened clay. 
31. Exexrron ("“HAextpov) (Onpia 7d péyeOos doov yivowTo avy ot 
KavOapot). 
Coccus lacca.—The Lac Insect, and its Products, Shell Lac and 
Lac Dye. 
None of the commentators on the ancient accounts of India appear to 
have suggested that the elektron, to which reference is not unfrequently 
made, can be identified with a known production of India. Lassen, 
however, suggested that it was a gum exuding from trees. There are 
several points in the following descriptions which point with certainty 
to the fact that it was crude shell-lac, which is a secretion that sur- 
rounds the female lac insect, whose body forms the material of lac dye. 
From Photios’s extracts, as given by Mr. M‘Crindle,” we learn that, 
‘“Through India there flows a certain river, not of any great size, but 
only about two stadia in breadth, called im the Indian tongue, 
Hyparkhos (“Yzapxos), which means in Greek, d¢pwv ravta Ta ayaba 
(z. e. the bearer of all good things). This river, for thirty days in 
every year, floats down amber, for in the upper part of its course, where 
it flows among the mountains, there are said to be trees overhanging 
its current which for thirty days, at a particular season in every year, 
continue dropping tears like the almond tree, and the pine tree, and 
other trees. These tears, on dropping into the water, harden into gum. 
The Indian name for the tree is Siptakhora (Surtdxopas),"* which means, 
when rendered into Greek, yAukvs (7. e. sweet). These trees, then, 
supply the Indians with their amber. And not only so, but they are 
said to yield berries, which grow in clusters like the grapes of the vine, 
and have stones as large as filbert nuts of Pontos.” 
Further on we read: ‘‘In the same parts there is a wild insect, 
about the size of a beetle, red like cinnabar, with legs excessively long. 
@ Hist. Anim., xvi. 15. Cf. Megasthenes, by J. W. M‘Crindle, p. 167. 
73 Ancient India, by J. W. M‘Crindle, pp. 20, 21. 
14 Aphytacora, according to Pliny, Nat. Hist., xxxvii. 11. 
