404 Dr. Wallace on the Oak feeding 
be unsuited as food to the worms. The trees are cut down to a 
height of 8 feet, in order easily to reach the branches, where are 
the worms and cocoons: when the spot is situated near houses, 
care must be taken to guard against the kitchen-chimney smoke. 
It is said that the smell of musk is prejudicial, and that the worms 
are alarmed by the sound of horns, drums and bells. After 
attaching to the trees branches with the worms thereon, these 
readily and quickly move on to the living boughs. Observe well the 
following precautions to keep the worms alive in a state of natural 
vigour. ‘To guard against ants, smear the trunk of the tree at the 
collar with a decoction of Tokoroten, in Chinese, Chi hoatsai (a 
kind of sea-weed, from which they make, in Japan, a jelly, which, 
when dry, is an article of commerce, under the name of Kanten, 
and passes in China, and also at Paris, for the edible nests of birds); 
then the ants disappear. Against wasps it is necessary to guard 
from the first day that the worms are at liberty.* It is necessary, 
also, to guard against the ravages of birds. For a tree of 16 feet 
high and a diameter of 10 feet, according to the foliage, one would 
reckon 50 larve.t One person alone would suffice to watch, but 
it should be very early in the morning, since the birds are also 
_early. As soon as the cocoons are made they should be guarded 
against mice, foxes and crows; it is well to cut the boughs from 
time to time, and to hang them on slender cords, and do so without 
injuring the worms. This mode, in the open air, is a delightful 
occupation, and there is nothing to fear from the temperature, as 
in the two preceding methods. If the worms remain on the branches 
or shrubs, the moths would deposit their eggs there, and the 
caterpillars be produced the next year. Such is the natural repro- 
duction. In the west of Japan, in the island Kiousiou, and in 
the interior of Nippon, there are many places where the Yamamat 
is to be found in a wild state in the forests, and many a place where 
women and children occupy themselves in collecting cocoons in the 
woods and hills, a source of wealth to many families. This worm 
does no damage to the trees of the forest or plain. It is nourished, 
it is true, on the spring foliage; but since it makes its. cocoon 
during the first twenty days of the fifth month, and the trees put 
out their second shoots in the sixth month, these can very well 
recover themselves. 
Management of the cocoons and moths. Five days after the 
worms are in cocoon, the branches to which they are attached 
* In Europe the wasps do not occur in quantity so early in the summer. 
+ Too small a crop, 
