5 
Part I] Lindsay And Hardow : Lac and Shellac 
are the males delicate creatures who easily succumb to adverse condi¬ 
tions of weather and the attacks of predaceous insects, but the females 
only produce their full crop of lac after they have been fertilized. 
If unfertilized they produce but little, and probably die early and 
childless, though perhaps the possibility of parthenogenetic produc¬ 
tion cannot yet be altogether excluded. 
After performing their proper function the males die off. The 
females, now nearly a sixteenth of an inch long, begin to secrete lac 
at a greater rate, presumably because they are taking more food to 
supply the needs of the very large family of young ones developing 
in their ovaries. Perhaps about a month after being fertilized the 
female dies; the eggs, or young, emerge from her body, which 
collapses into a mere sac, and seems by its contraction to leave a 
vacant space in the lac which shows as an “ orange spot ”: after 
sheltering for a short time (a week ?) under the lac, at a suitable 
opportunity the little swarm of tiny mauve dots emerges on the outer 
world, to wander in search of fresh succulent shoots and fix themselves 
as already described. 
The details of the life-history that we have here briefly sketched 
cannot be filled in, as they are still for the most part unknown, but 
enough has been said to enable us to pick out a few points which will 
evidently have an important influence on the crop of lac produced by 
a given brood. 
These are— 
(1) The amount and quality of food obtainable from the plant 
on which the insects are fixed, dependent on the nature 
and habit of the plant, conditions of soil, weather, etc. 
(2) The vitality and hardiness of the strain or variety of insect 
engaged in the production, and its general efficiency as 
a producer of lac from the juice of the particular plant 
on which it is fixed. 
(3) Weather conditions, e.g. } presence or absence of hot drying 
winds, dust, frost, hail, heavy rain, at the time of 
swarming and fixation and at the time when the males 
are emerging. The general influence of climatic factors 
on the welfare, and therefore the distribution of lac 
insects. 
