254 



female judging from the size of it is still in pupa." These were 

 sent to him early in June and the moths emerged on 23rd July, 

 those sent to Mr. Wardle on 17th May, produced moths, about 

 24th August, in the first instance the moths emerged about 7 

 weeks before mine appeared here, which must point to the fact 

 that the heat of the present summer in England is greater than 

 we have had it here of late. 



The silk possesses a rich gloss ; in quality, strength, fineness 

 of texture, and shade of colour it is all that could be desired, and 

 when it is considered that the larvse were retarded to a certain 

 extent through my having to experiment with various trees and 

 shrubs to ascertain what they would feed on, during which time 

 they went without a supply of food ; my progress since has been 

 very satisfactory. These larvae seem to have no particular time 

 for spinning ; cocoons were started at all hours of the day. Two 

 leaves are made use of between Avhich the cocoon is formed, in 

 many instances simply a leaf folded cylindrically ; a few were 

 formed against the sides of the cage in any convenient comer. 

 The weight of four picked cocoons is an ounce. 



On the 7th September 1893, rather less than five months 

 after the commencement of the spinning, the first moth emerged, 

 a male, and on the 8th a female. They paired in the evening of 

 the same day, and on the 9th and 10th about 80 eggs were laid. 

 I am expecting the rest of the moths to emerge in a day or two. 



On the 13th April a male and female of Attacus Cynthia 

 emerged, but did not pair till the 15th, between that date and 

 the 20th April, many moths emei'ged and paired successfully, a 

 great number of eggs being obtained. On the 25th April, the 

 first batch of eggs hatched, thus taking about 10 days to germ- 

 inate. On the 30th April they moulted for the first time ; they 

 were fed on the Ricinus Comtyiunis, on which they throve very 

 well ; some of them also were fed on Terminalia catappa, and I 

 have no doubt that if I had had a greater supply of this almond 

 to feed them on, they would have produced much better results 

 than those fed on the castor oil plant and as I had Pernyi and 

 Cynthia worms to attend to at the same time I devoted much 

 more time and care to the former, numbers of the latter 

 were carried oflT by wasps through having too large a 

 mesh of perforated zinc, at first I was unable to account 

 for the disappearance of the worms until by keeping 

 watch I perceived a few small wasps at work of course 

 they could only carry off the very small worms this 

 was put a stop to by using mosquito netting. From experi- 

 ments made feeding the worms on plants protected by muslin 

 sleeves very good results were obtained the heavy rains not 

 having any bad effect, the leaves of the castor oil plant afford a ' 



