Ailanthiculture. 191 
French manufacture.” Such was the first.success in England ; 
and never, I venture to predict, will this new and magnificent 
Bombyx fail to find ardent admirers and cultivators in this country. 
In 1862, at Lady D. Nevill’s town house, I first beheld these 
beautiful larvee feeding on the leaves of the dilanthus glandulosa. 
In 1863 1 became possessed, through the kindness of her ladyship, 
of some eggs and procured others from France, and I obtained that 
summer, as also in 1865, two generations. In confirmation of 
the statement that the cocoons in England were remarkable for 
their size, M. de Roo van Westmas, writing from the Nether- 
lands, a moister and more temperate clime than France, in August, 
1864, says* ‘The acclimatization of B. Cynthia has perfectly 
succeeded, and presents a remarkable fact, viz., that the race is, 
without doubt, ameliorated. The moths are larger and more 
vigorous than those of the preceding year. The females laid last 
year from 100 to 150 eggs, but now give from 300 to 350, and 
what is still more remarkable is, that the eggs are larger and 
heavier, for whereas before a gramme contained 540—560, now 
I find only 440—460 in that weight: this fact appeared to me of 
such importance, that I counted the eggs in five grammes taken 
from a weight of thirty grammes. I found the number 2,261, which 
gives an average of 452 eggs toa gramme.” <A gramme being 
equal to 153 grains (nearly), this gives twenty-nine or thirty eggs 
to the grain. My own experience tallies exactly with that of M. 
de Roo; specimens bred in 1865, the progeny in part of French 
eges purchased in 1863, exhibited as the result of two years’ 
acclimatization in England a marked improvement in size, colour, 
&c., in all their stages, as contrasted with their French progenitors, 
and the cocoons were finer in 1865 than in 1864, Lady Dorothy 
Nevill also reports that the English eggs and cocoons are finer 
than the French. If this be proved by further observation it 
becomes an important argument in favour of English Ailanthi- 
culture, for a larger cocoon implies a greater weight of silk. 
It is now time to describe the food-plant, with a view to show 
that it is well fitted for English Sericiculture. In 1751, little 
more than 110 years ago—an interval providentially sufficient to 
enable the tree to become known and acclimatized in Europe and 
its colonies, before the insect which converts its juices into silk 
was introduced—the Royal Society of London received from the 
Abbé Incarville, a French missionary in China, the first seeds of 
the Ailanthus glandulosa ; cultivated by Miller and Carteret Webb, 
this tree spread over the continent: from its appearance it was 
© Revue de Sériciculture, 1864. No. 8, p. 221. 
