ATTACUS ATLAS? A LIFE-HISTORY. 27 
about twenty years ago; when Dr. T. Horsfield and Mr. F. Moore 
published two vols. of ‘‘A Catalogue of the Lepid. Ins. in the 
Mus. of the E. Ind. Comp.” In the second vol. of that fine 
work, a fuli synonymy of the species is given; a description of its 
transformations by Lady Isabella Gilbert; and a note of its 
habits in Java. Lady I. Gilbert, in N. India, writes (1825):— 
“A specimen (female) was caught on the 4th of September. On the 
following morning she laid several pink-and-white eggs. On the 15th the 
young caterpillars were hatched. Being uncertain what plant they fed on, 
I placed them on slips of different trees, viz., apple, plum, peach, &c. The 
young caterpillars were black, with numerous white spines; as they grew 
larger, and changed their skins, the spines became covered with a kind of 
white powder, giving them a very delicate appearance; added to which, the 
ground-colour of the body, since the first few days after they were hatched, 
had become a light green. They always ate their skins after casting them. 
Day and night they devoured the leaves, and those on the apple-branch 
srew to an enormous size: on the 12th of October one of these began to 
prepare for its transformation by bending back a large leaf, and inclosing 
itself in a web, which it completed on the 13th. During the three 
preceding days it had considerably diminished in size: this I have observed 
to be the case with many larve prior to their change. On the 22nd of June 
following the moth came out.” 
To this the authors have added :—‘‘ Feeds on the Melokka 
Phyllanthus emblica), Kupu-gaja, &c. December to January. 
Rather common. (Horsfield MS.)” The full-grown larva and 
the cocoon are figured from the last-named authority. 
In a valuable ‘‘Synopsis of the known Asiatic species of 
Silk-producing Moths,” (Proc. Zool. Soc. for 1859), Mr. Moore 
has, of course, included Att. Atlas (p. 265). The account in the 
“Catalogue” is repeated verbatim, with the following additional 
note. “It is said that the Chinese Tusseh silk is obtained from 
the cocoon of this species.” 
Mr. F. Walker (List of Lep. Ins. in B. Mus. Part V.—1855) 
gives, besides a copious synonymy, a diagnosis of eight varieties of 
the imago; but not a hint of the early stages. 
The mortality which has, during the last quarter of a century, 
fallen on the cultivated Silkworm, not in Europe only but also 
throughout Asia, has caused an anxious search in various 
countries for other silk-spinning species, and the introduction of 
several of these into Western Hurope; in hope that some might 
