28 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
prove available substitutes for the long established Bombyx mori ; 
or, at least, valuable aids to it. The success of these endeavours 
it is not my present business to exhibit; they have certainly not 
been wholly futile; suffice it to observe, that among these 
importations the cocoons of the glorious Atlas have at last 
eladdened our occidental eyes. 
In March 1868 M. Braine, of Arras in France, received thirty 
cocoons of Atlas from that learned entomologist Captain ‘Thomas 
Hutton of Mussooree, whose researches on the debilitated condition 
of the old Silkworms, and suggestions for their renovation, are well 
known (Trans. Ent. Soc. 1864, 1865). M. Braine has given us* 
a brief relation of his success in rearing the species. ‘The 
cocoons being kept dry, in July evolved the moths, seven and a 
half to nine and three-quarter inches in expanse. Through the 
irregularity of their emergence, coupling was accomplished with 
difficulty, and only a few (fifty or sixty) ova were produced, which 
were of a rose-colour, and not quite so large as those of Yama-mai. 
These he wintered in a warm room; and the larve were hatched 
about the end of the following June (1869). He fed them on the 
common pink barberry, in the open air, exposed to the sun. 
Many of them died at the third moult; more still at the fourth. 
At last, however, a few went into cocoon, towards the end of 
August; these were exhibited to the public at the Exposition 
des Insectes (Oct. 1872). This time the marriages of his pets 
were much more normal, and he obtained a considerable number 
of eggs, and some “very remarkable”? moths. He hoped now 
to prosecute his culture on a large scale. But the war in 1870 
blasted his hopes, wasted his plantations, and just permitted him, 
with difficulty, the means of recommencing. Having replanted 
his barberries, and nursed his protégés, M. Braine obtained in 
1872 a full success, and exhibited satisfactory results at the 
Exposition of Luxemburg. 
’ 
*T think I may say,” concludes the enterprising naturalist, ‘that I 
have acclimated this magnificent species of Bombycide, of which each 
cocoon weighs, on an average,.two grammes |or th of an ounce}.” 
“The Attacus Atlas is very inert and somnolent: when once it is 
attached to the tree, it is, so to speak, glued to it, and does not fall like 
Yama-mai. It is very fond of water; thrice a day I gave the worms a fine 
and soft rain, which always revived them. ‘The fourth moult is the most 
*T’Attacus Atlas, le géant des Papillons; son introd. en France, par M. A. 
Bruine et Maurice Girard. 
