S14 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



abundant. Such being the prospects of tusser, it is hardly 

 necessary to speak of the other wild worms of Assam. Eight 

 species are described, whereof three are the wild varieties of 

 the pat, muga, and eri worms, and none of them are turned to 

 any practical account, though cocoons found by chance in the 

 jungle may occasionally be brought home by the cultivator, 

 and reeled or spun together with cocoons of his own brood. In 

 the wild state they occur but sparingly, their principal habitat 

 being the dense and unpeopled jungle of the submontane tracts, 

 while the possibility of domesticating them in Assam need not be 

 considered for a moment. It is not to be expected that the 

 Assamese, who take so little care and trouble with the 

 domesticated worms they have already, could ever be induced 

 to make experiments with a new species, nor is there any reason 

 to believe that the produce of the wild worms, even if successfully 

 cultivated, would prove in any way superior to the existing silks 

 of the country. 



The Domesticated Silkworms of Assam. — Dismissing the wild 

 worms, therefore, from consideration altogether, we have three 

 kinds of domesticated worms in Assam, or rather, it may be 

 said, in the Brahmaputra Valley, for the Surma Valley is not 

 generally a country of silk cultivation. These are the pdt or 

 mulberry worm {Bomhyx textor) ; the muga or SMm-feeding worm 

 Antheroea assama), whose cocoon, like that of the pat, can be 

 reeled ; and the castor-oil worm {Attacus ricini), yielding a silk 

 which is never reeled, but spun by hand. Looking simply to 

 their commercial potentialities, these three species of silkworm 

 may at once be reduced to two, by striking out the mulbeny 

 worm (pdt), on account alike of the costliness of its silk, the 

 scantiness of the present supply, and the difficulty of extending 

 its cultivation. The two remaining species, the muga and eri, 

 present a much more hopeful field of enterprise. They are 

 produced in considerable quantity already ; they are thoroughly 

 adapted to the climatic conditions of Assam (being, indeed, 

 probably indigenous to this part of India), and there is no obvious 

 reason why their cultivation should not be capable of immense 

 development. The eri is the more promising of the two, both 

 because it is cheaper and more abundant, and also because, 

 being reared entirely indoors, its cultivation does not entail 

 that troublesome necessity of watching by night and day which 



