196 ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OP THE LAC INSECT. 



is a pink coloured substance, which crumbles easily, and when cooked (always 

 avoiding iron vessels) by boiling, as is done with arrowroot and tapioca, and 

 seasoned with sugar, it forms, when eaten with milk, a pleasant food, of a 

 delicate and agreeable flavour. But, besides being a good strengthening 

 food for children, and persons of sedentary habits, from its lightness and 

 easiness of digestion, it would, I think, be a substantial food for labourers, 

 especially European. 



The substances to which I have sought attention by this paper are : — 

 1st. The bread-fruit flour and meal ; 2nd. Bread-fruit biscuits ; 3rd. Bread- 

 fruit starch ; 4th. Bread-fruit tapioca (that is, the residuum, after separation 

 from the starch) ; 5th. Plantain flour and meal ; 6th. Plantain starch ; 7th. 

 Plantain tapioca. 



Should any of my readers, especially intelligent ladies, be induced to try 

 the qualities and uses of some of these articles in any of the ways I have 

 suggested, the results will be a communication of much importance to the 

 domestic well-being of the community, especially to the inhabitants of 

 interior districts, and I hope they may be persuaded to communicate these 

 to the public. 



I cannot help suggesting for consideration how much these facts show the 

 value of the interior, cool, healthy lands of this island to intending Euro- 

 pean emigrants. I have observed farm and emigrant life in America and 

 Canada, and I feel certain that there is no country on earth where, with so 

 little labour, the "gushing abundance" of the farmer's table could so 

 quickly, and with so small a cost of labour, be established, as in the cool, 

 seasonable districts of this island. It is a low, a very low estimate, to say 

 that one-third of the labour which is expended on agriculture in Canada on 

 a farm would, if expended on a settlement in this island, accomplish a far 

 larger return in comfort and substantial profit to the cultivator. Farinas — 

 roots, pulse, fruits, and oils, without end, and the indispensable groceries of 

 civilised life — coffee and sugar — can be had growing at the door, to all of 

 which add our infinite variety of fibres, the cultivation of which cost almost 

 nothing, and the prepartion might be rendered easy and inexpensive. 



Kingston. W. W. A. 



ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE LAC INSECT (COCCUS 



LACCA).* 



BY H. J. CARTER, F.R.S. 



[Rehable scientific information respecting the Natural History of the lac 

 insect has hitherto been much wanted. The only details we have previ- 

 ousby met with were contained in a paper communicated to the Royal 

 Society so far back as May 24, 1781, by Mr. James Kerr, of Patna.] — 

 Editor. 



* From the Annals and Magazine of Natural History. 



