Part I. ] 
Stebbing : Note on the Lac Insect. 
7 
into a mass), seen to be circular with twelv'e notches arranged round 
the base, six on each side. The outer surface is covered with a kind of 
white powder which is concentrated here and there into little spots, 
being chiefly confined to the three white tufts which radiate from three 
small holes situated in the incrustation or scale. These holes are placed 
triangularly, two being closer together than the third, which is the anal 
and largest one, the others being spiracular orifices (breathing openings) . 
These three openings are continuous with the three corresponding aper- 
tures described above as situated on the insect and from which the three 
white tufts protrude. 
The male insect . — About two months after the small red larva? first 
Male insect issue small red insects are to be found actively 
crawling over the newly formed incrustations 
of the females. These are the male insects. 
The male is a little larger than the larva when it first issues ; it has 
larger antennae which are hairy. plumose and consist of seven joints exclud- 
ing the two basal ones ; there are four eyes, two lateral and two placed 
underneath the head ; two long hair-like appendages project from the 
upper side of the penultimate segment of the body ; on the last segment 
there is a beak-like horny process which is curved downwards and is 
connected with the generative organs. The changes undergone by the 
male larva in its development consist therefore of a slight increase in size, 
in a marked development of the antennae, in a differentiation of the head 
and the addition of two large eyes beneath, whose function appears 
to be to enable the male to see the openings on the lac connecting 
with the female generative organs. 
The male larvae, as is the case with the female, after a short 
period of activity after first hatching, come to rest on the twig and 
bury their probosces in it. A scale is formed, but this differs from 
that of the female in being slightly smaller, narrower, and elliptical 
in shape and in having no serrated base or holes or white, hair-like 
appendages. This scale is open at its posterior or unfixed end and 
the male on maturing leaves it at this end by elevating it and crawl- 
ing out backwards. 
5. Life History. 
Owing to the varied nature of the climate in India the life histories 
, . f. , of most of the insects which are more or less 
(a) General. 
universally distributed over the continent 
