Ailanthiculture. 189 
sent by the Abbé Fantoni, a Piedmontese missionary, from the 
province of Shan Tung, lat. 35°—40°, in the north of China, situate 
just south of Pekin, to some friends at Turin. The climate of 
that part of China, as I am informed bya relative who has resided 
there, is very similar to the climate of Northern Germany, that is, 
it differs from our English climate only in the winter being a little 
colder, and the summer somewhat hotter, and that alternations of 
temperature so common in this country are rare there, the seasons 
being more thorough. Received in November, 1856, these cocoons 
hatched out the following year, and towards the middle of May, 
1857, the first living specimen of Bombyx Cynthia was born in 
Kurope. Fertile eggs were obtained, and two generations were 
that year successfully reared at Turin. 
In 1858, onthe 5th July, at Paris, M. Guérin-Méneville received 
from Turin quills containing eggs of the insect, as well as three 
fertile females engaged in depositing eggs, which were the same 
day exhibited at the Académie des Sciences; under the care of 
M. Méneville these eggs were successfully reared, the insect was 
distributed over many parts of Europe and her colonies, and has 
since thriven and multiplied in a marvellous degree. 
But it was a puzzle at first to know how to feed these worms ; 
the name of the tree on the leaves of which they fed in China was 
to the Abbé Fantoni a mystery, but as he described it in his 
letters as being very like the Acacia leaf, when the young Euro- 
pean brood hatched out, all kinds of leaves of that likeness were 
submitted to their taste, and fortunately among them there chanced 
to be some Ailanthus leaves; these they selected, ate greedily, 
aud perfected therewith all their changes. It was therefore con- 
cluded, and rightly, to be their proper food. 
In 1861 Bombyx Cynthia was introduced into England, M. 
Guérin- Méneville having sent over eggs to Lady Dorothy Nevill 
of Dangstein, near Petersfield, Hants; she wrote in reply as 
follows,* August Ist, 1861, “ J’ai beaucoup de plaisir a vous ap- 
prendre que les vers-a-soie de l’Ailante ont réu8si au-dela de mes 
désirs quant a l’éclosion. Ifs sont magnifiques comme grosseur ; 
mais malheureusement nous n’avons pas eu assez d’arbres pour 
leur fournir une nourriture suffisante, ce qui fait que beaucoup ont 
éié perdus. Les vers qui ont fait des cocons les ont produit moins 
beaux sansdonte par le manque de feuilles pour se nourrir, Ni le 
froid, ni de fortes. pluies, rien ne parait avoir nui a leur parfaite 
aeclimatation.” 
‘‘Depuis Lady Nevill a fait parvenir plusieurs cocons de sa 
* Rapport de M. Guérin-Méneville 4 S. E. le Ministre de I’ Agriculture, 
1862, 
