165 



være vanskelig at overkomme, og jeg kun ved speciel 

 Velvillie af Hr. Generalconsol de Bavier i Nagasaki er 

 kommet i Besiddelse af den. Her hedder det, p. 6 : 

 »In the third Report of Japanese Sericulture dated 

 Yedo, 10th August, 1870, Mr. F. 0. Adams, first Secre- 

 tary of the British Legation, summing up his previous 

 researches on the subject, states the larva of the uji 

 after having fed upon the chrysalis and killed it, pierces 

 the cocoon; that the cocoon thus pierced can neither 

 be reeled, nor, of course, be used for reproduction, and 

 that the proportion of cocoons containing uji varies 

 from 10 to 80 per cent. In the absence of all reliable 

 information of the part of the natives who seem to have 

 paid no attention to the matter he was led to surmise 

 that the larva of the uji must in spring transform 

 itself into a fly, and that the fly deposited its eggs 

 under the epidermis of the silk-worm . . . 



In order to put Mr. Adams's theory to the test of 

 experiment, we reared some silk-worms in a room 

 where every precaution was taken to exclude flies and 

 other insects. The resultat was as follows: 



312 say 50 per cent, cocoons pierced by moths. 



235 say 38 per cent, pierced by uji. 

 40 say 7 per cent, unpierced either by moths or uji. 

 33 say 5 per cent, double cocoons. 

 . . . This was in 1873 ... In October some uji on 

 being cut open were found to contain the well-formed 

 embryo of a fly. On the 3rd May we had the satisfac- 

 tion of finding a number of flies, which had emerged 

 from the uji, prisoners under a veil of gaze arranged 

 for that purpose; the empty shells of the larvæ were 

 found in earth where they had remained imbedded 

 since their birth. 



The proportion of uji, which in spite of our pre- 



