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XXI. Observations and Experiments on a Wax-like Substance , 
resembling the P6-la of the Chinese, collected at Madras by 
Dr. Anderson, and called by him White Lac. By George 
Pearson, M. D. F. R. S . 
Read May 29, 1794. 
I. Some Observations relative to the natural History of the Bi- 
sect which secretes a Sort of JVax, called white Lac. 
The matter which is the subject of the following observa- 
tions and experiments, was first noticed by Dr. Anderson of 
Madras, about the year 1786, in a letter to the governor and 
council of that place, when he says, nests of insects resem- 
bling small cowry shells were brought to him from the woods 
by the natives, who eat them with avidity. These supposed 
nests he shortly afterwards discovered to be the coverings of 
the females of an undescribed species of coccus ; and having 
noticed, in the Abbe Grosier's Account of China, that the 
Chinese collect a kind of wax, much esteemed by them, under 
the name of Pe-la, from a coccus deposited for the purpose of 
breeding on certain shrubs, and managed exactly in the same 
manner as the Mexicans manage the cochineal insect, he fol- 
lowed the same process with his new insects, and shortly found 
means to propagate them with great facility on several of the 
trees and shrubs growing in his neighbourhood* 
