THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



No. 4G.] OCTOBER, MDCCCLXVII. [Price 6d. 



On Rearing the Yama-mai Silkworm. 

 By George Gascoyne, Esq. 



Permit me the use of your columns to make a ^ew remarks 

 on the rearing of the larva of the oak-feeding silkworm, 

 Yama-mai. I have found it so easy to manage that, with 

 such an abundance of its food-plant on every hand, there 

 seems no reason why it should not be extensively and pro- 

 fitably cultivated in this country. 



Those of your readers who have perused Dr. Wallace's 

 exact and painstaking prize-essay on the Yama-mai, pub- 

 lished in the Entomological Society's ' Transactions,' must 

 have arisen from its perusal with but small hope of its ever 

 becoming productive in England ; at least such would have 

 been my own conclusion, had not a general experience ia 

 larva-rearing convinced me that the mode of proceeding 

 detailed therein was just such as to induce the disease of 

 which all the larvae died. Dr. Wallace has so faithfully 

 noted his experiments, and those of others in this country, 

 as to enable us at once to lay hand on the causes of failure ; 

 the larvae have in fact been " killed with kindness :" the 

 almost incessant supply of water has mainly tended to this 

 result. I am convinced that neither Notodonta trepida, 

 Endromis versicolor, nor other large and robust larvae, could 

 be reared under such treatment. 



For the information of those who have not seen Dr. Wal- 

 lace's Essay, I may mention that all attempts in this country 

 to get the larvae into pupa3 had practically failed to the date 

 of the publication of the Essay ; and the Doctor informs me, 

 in a letter lately received, that those he is now feeding are 

 fast dying off. Under different treatment my larvae have 

 already spun up, without a single instance of disease or the 

 slightest check. Fifteen eggs hatched ; one of the young 

 larva) disappeared the day following, and two others, at a 



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