128 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



of April till all the moths have emerged and the larvae hatched, 

 especially if the latter are to be reared in the open air. 



The other great enem}^ is the common house sparrow, that 

 useless pest, of which so many have to complain. The sparrow 

 destroys everything that is good, and nothing else but what 

 is good, and it gives nothing in return. 



In 1885, as in 1884, I should in all probability have had a 

 ver}' successful rearing of the valuable oak silkworms, A. ijernyi 

 and A. yama-mdi, had not the sparrows destroyed them all 

 on two different occasions. The larvae of A. pernyi had hatched 

 from eggs sent from Spain, A. yama-ma'i from eggs sent from 

 France. They were on trees covered with netting which was in 

 very bad condition, and the sparrows managed to get through, 

 as soon as they had perceived the larvse. The netting was 

 mended, and a second lot of larvse obtained from my own moths 

 were placed on the trees, but these had the same fate, the crafty 

 sparrows always finding a little opening to get under the netting. 



From the experience acquired after rearing for a number of 

 years various species of wild silkworms, we come to the conclu- 

 sion that Anthercea pernyi (the North China oak silkworm), 

 and Attacus cynthia (the Ailanthus silkworm), also a native 

 of North China, are by far the easiest to rear on a large scale in 

 northern countries. Telea 2?olyphemus, of the United States of 

 North America, succeeds also very well in the open air, but the 

 propagation of this species is difficult, and so is that of Attacus 

 yama-mdi, the Japanese oak silkworm. 



A silk manufactory in Lyons has offered to purchase samples 

 of empty or dead cocoons of all species of wild silkworms, for 

 the purpose of testing their qualities ; after these experiments, 

 immense quantities of empty cocoons will be purchased of all 

 good wild silks. I shall, therefore, be happy to receive commu- 

 nications from persons in all countries where these wild silk- 

 worms can be reared easily on a large scale, and to obtain from 

 them samples of from ten to twenty pounds in weight of empty 

 or dead cocoons of each species. Communications to be kindly 

 sent to me at Norbiton, Surrey. 



I shall now mention some of the species which were reared in 

 1885. Several of my correspondents succeeded in rearing such 

 species as A. yama-mdi, A. pernyi, the hybrid roylei-pernyi, 

 Actlas tuna, Callosainia promethea and cynthia; some were 



