Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 July 2009
The lac insects have, in recent years, been the object of extensive attention, partly on account of their economic importance, and partly on account of the biological interest that invests them. What the late Professor Lefroy had remarked about the Aphids in his “Indian Insect Life” may well have been said of these also but for the appearance of Chamberlin's Monograph (Bull. Ent. Res., xiv, 1923, pp. 147–122; xvi, 1925, pp. 31–42), which supplied a long-needed treatise on the subject. The weakness of this monograph, however, has seemed to me to be the insufficient treatment of the Indian forms, which was, evidently, due to lack of material, and it has therefore seemed desirable to undertake a study of the Indian lac insects in order to fill in the lacunae in this otherwise excellent monograph.