INDIAN FOREST RECORDS 
Vol. VIII] 1920 [Part I 
CHAPTER I. 
The Lac Insect. 
No one has suggested a better derivation of the word “lac’ 
than that from the Sanskrit Laksha (Hindi Lakh) meaning a hundred 
thousand. The allusion * is to the vast numbers of minute lac 
insects which emerge at the period of swarming and settle on the 
young shoots of the “ host’’-tree, to suck its juice and exude the 
lac of commerce. 
The following brief account of the insect is offered only as a 
necessary preliminary to subsequent remarks and recommendations on 
the subject of cultivation, collection, manufacture, and research. For, 
although the life-history and habits of the insect have already been 
studied to some extent, more especially by Carter, Imms, and Misra, our 
knowledge is still so incomplete that no general account can be other 
than superficial and fragmentary. The present account is based on 
earlier ones and on personal observation, while Appendix III 
indicates some of the more obvious gaps in our knowledge that ought 
to be filled up if we wish to obtain any effective control over the 
insect and the crop. 
The lac insect, Tachardia lacca , belongs to the group of Coccidae 
or scale-insects, so called from the scale or outer covering which is 
characteristic of most of them. This “ scale ” consists of various 
excretions and secretions, together with moulted-off skins, and it acts 
as a protective shield to the insect’s body. In the case of the lac 
insect the “ scale ” is particularly thick and massive, and is composed 
of the amber-coloured resinous substance known as “ lac ”, the raw 
material from which shellac is manufactured. Motionless under 
this amber shield the little purple insect lives most of its life, suck¬ 
ing through its delicate hair-like proboscis the juices of the plant to 
* c.f. The descriptive term “ millions ” applied to the little West Indian fishes that 
are sometimes used to destroy mosquito-larvae. 
