2 
Indian Forest Records. 
[Vol. VIII 
by ants for the sake of their honey-dew, and there is no reason to 
suppose that ants are really responsible for any appreciable amount of 
damage. Imms gives a list of eleven species of ants that are often 
found associated with lac insects, but thinks it unlikely that they are 
of any importance as enemies. 
At present no fungal or bacterial^disease is known to attack the 
lac insect, a fact which encourages the hope that their future intensive 
cultivation under more completely domestic conditions, as in the case 
of the silk-worm, may not be a matter of exceptional risk or difficulty. 
The enemies and diseases of the many food-plants of lac are too 
numerous to be mentioned here, and no one of them can be considered 
of sufficient general importance to merit detailed treatment in a report 
of this kind. The last and perhaps at present the most important 
enemy of all, the human thief, hardly comes within the normal scope 
of this chapter, but it may be suggested that intensive cultivation of 
the insect under more nearly “ domestic ” conditions would probably 
be the simplest way of checking loss from theft. 
