Silkworm from Japan. 405 
are suspended on slender cords. After ten or eleven days* the 
cocoons are gathered and placed in flat baskets made for this very 
purpose, and are kept in a special room apart from all smoke. 
The moths emerge regularly twenty-fivet days after the formation 
of the cocoons, but the time varies somewhat. Sometimes they 
do not emerge till the 1st September, and sometimes later still. 
Some people hang mats above the baskets, but more frequently 
they place the baskets before a screen, on which the moths repose 
after emergence. Often they come out before seven a.m.,{ so 
that at that time the moths ought to be collected in the baskets 
destined for their coition. These baskets, Ted kajo, are bell- 
shaped, 1 foot 7 inches high, and 15 inches wide, and have a lid 
to shut down. In each basket 100 moths are placed, half females, 
and half males. The sexes are distinguished by the antenna. The 
lid is placed on and the basket hung up: four days afterwards the 
lid is lifted off, the males fly away, the females remain and deposit 
their eggs at the side of the basket, which is closed again: then 
the baskets are placed in the shade and watered thrice daily with 
a fine shower; at the end of ten days all the moths are dead. 
The eggs are removed by means of a fine scraper of bamboo, and 
are spread out thinly in open baskets, which are hung up in a 
fresh, airy spot. If the eggs were then kept in closed baskets, 
or in sacks, they would ferment, and no produce would result the 
following year. It is not till after the autumnal equinox that the 
eggs are placed in hempen bags, or in little flat baskets, and are 
then hung up for fear of mice. The eggs are kept on the northern 
side of the building, shaded from the sun, There is nothing to fear 
from snow or rain, which, indeed, are beneficial, since they cause 
the death of the weakly worms. The healthy ones are able to 
resist the cold and wet, and next year produce a vigorous brood. 
In hot countries the eggs are placed in card-board drawers, in 
which they are spread out to a thickness of 5 boun, 3 centimetres, 
about 1 inch. Each drawer is 1 foot by 15 inches, and is closed 
by a fine copper grating. During the frost it is well to expose 
the drawer to the air one or two nights. 
When the eggs are kept in baskets, these should be only one- 
third full, In hot countries the eggs are placed where the air is 
* Fifteen to eighteen days, according to French experience. 
+ Forty days in France. 
t This should be 7 p.m. There is some mistake here, probably of the 
translators, unless it means that the moths emerge during the night, and are 
not observed till morning. 
FE2 
