REPORT OF THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 21 
inground. In form the cocoon is usually oval, and in color yellowish, 
but in both these features it varies greatly, being either pure silvery- 
white, cream or carneous, green, and even roseate, and very often con- 
stricted in the middle. It has always been considered possible to dis- 
tinguish the sex of the contained insect from the general shape of the 
cocoon, those containing males being slender, depressed in the middle, 
and pointed at both ends, while the female cocoons are of a larger size 
and rounder form, and resemble in shape a hen’s egg with equal ends. 
Mr. Crozier, however, emphatically denies this, and thinks it “next to 
impossible for the smartest connoisseur not to be mistaken.” 
THE CHRYSALIS.—The chrysalis is a brown, oval body, considerably 
less in size than the full-grown worm. In the external integument may 
be traced folds corresponding with the abdominal rings, the wings folded 
over the breast, the antenne, and the eyes of the inclosed insect—the 
future moth. At the posterior end of the chrysalis, pushed closely up 
to the wall of the cocoon, is the last larval skin, compressed into a dry 
wad of wrinkled integument. The chrysalis state continues for from two 
to three weeks, when the skin bursts and the moth emerges. 
THE Mors (PI. I, Fig. 3)—With no jaws, and confined within the 
narrow space of the cocoon, the moth finds some difficulty in escaping. 
For this purpose it is provided, in two glands near the obsolete mouth, 
‘ with a strongly alkaline liquid secretion, with which it moistens the end 
of the cocoon and dissolves the hard gummy lining. Then, by a forward 
and backward motion, the prisoner, with crimped and damp wings, 
gradually forces its way out, and when once out the wings soon expand 
and dry. The silken threads are simply pushed aside, but enough of 
them get broken in the process to render the cocoons from which the 
moths escape comparatively useless for reeling. The moth is of a cream 
color, with more or less distinct brownish markings across the wings, 
as in Fig. 3. The males have broader antenne or feelers than the 
females, and may by this feature at once be distinguished. Neither sex 
flies, but the male is more active than the female. They couple soon 
after issuing, and in a short time the female begins depositing her eggs, 
whether they have been impregnated or not. Very rarely the unimpreg- 
nated egg has been observed to develop. 
ENEMIES AND DISEASES. 
As regards the enemies of the silk-worm but little need be said. It 
has been generally supposed that no true parasite will attack it, but in 
China and Japan great numbers of the worms are killed by a disease 
known as “uji,” which is undoubtedly produced by the larva of some 
insect parasite. Several diseases of a fungoid or epizodtic nature, and 
several maladies which have not been sufficiently characterized to enable 
us to determine their nature, are common to this worm. One of these 
diseases, called muscardine, has been more or less destructive in Europe 
for many years. It is of precisely the same nature as the fungus (Lm- 
pusa musce), which so frequently kills the common house-fly, and which 
sheds a halo of spores, readily seen upon the window-pane, around its 
victim. 
A worm, about to die of this disease, becomes languid, and the pulsa- 
tions of the dorsal vessel or heart become insensible. It suddenly dies, 
and in a few hours becomes stiff, rigid, and discolored; and finally, in 
about a day, a white powder or efflorescence manifests itself, and soon 
entirely covers the body, developing most rapidly in a warm, humid at- 
mosphere. No outward signs indicate the first stage of the disease, and 
