1924 ] 
The Name of the Lac Insects 
47 
THE NAME OF THE LAC INSECTS 
By T. D. a. Cockerell. 
University of Colorado 
The Monograph of the Tachardiinse, by Mr. J. C. Chamber- 
lin, recently published in Bulletin of Entomological Research, 
vol. XIV, is certainly a fine example of modern work on Coccidse. 
It appears to exhaust the subject so far as the available materials 
permit, but of course many species remain to be discovered, and 
there is much to be done on the biology of all. Before it was 
published, I called the attention of Professor Ferris to the name 
Laccifer Oken, but he presumably had no access to Oken’s 
work. I am indebted to Mr. C. D. Sherborn for a copy of 
Oken’s account, in Lehrb. Naturg., Ill (1), 1815, p. 430. He 
proposes a genus Laccifer, for ^‘Chermes or Coccus lacca” It is 
stated to be the source of the gum-lac, and to occur by the 
Ganges on Mimosa cinerea and M. glauca, plants now known as 
Dichrostachys cinerea (L.) Wight & Arn. and Leucoena glauca (L.) 
Benth. The old error of taking the male coccid for the adult 
female and some hymenopterous parasite for the adult female 
is repeated, but does not invalidate the name. I agree with 
Ferris that these peculiar insects deserve to rank as a family, 
and accordingly the following changes appear to be necessary: 
Family Lacciferidse (Tachardiidse Ferris) 
Subfamily Lacciferinse (Tachardiinse Ckll., pars.) 
Laccifer albizzice (Green, as Tachardia) 
Laccifer meridionalis (Chamb., as Tachardia) 
Laccifer greeni (Chamb., as Tachardia) 
Laccifer fid (Green, as Tachardia) 
Laccifer ehrachiatus (Chamb., as Tachardia) 
Laccifer lacca (Kerr, as Coccus) 
Laccifer conchiferatus (Green, as Tachardia) 
It may be noted that according to the rules Tachardina lobata is 
to be credited to Green, as he not only published a full descrip- 
tion, but gave the name and mentioned a difference from the 
