146 Captain T. Hutton on the 
(B. Sinensis, nob.) has continued yielding crop after crop even to 
the middle of December, when the eggs were again deposited in a 
temperature of 53° of Fahrenheit. Hence I adhere with good 
reason to the opinion that all are naturally distinct species. Con- 
sequently, as all the other accounts, quoted by Mr. Moore and 
other authorities, lead to the conclusion that one spring crop only 
was produced by the worm originally cultivated in China, it will 
be well to allow the annual species domesticated in Europe as 
B. Mori, to retain that distinctive title, more especially when we 
consider that as the people were forbidden to rear—not merely a 
second crop of silk, but— a second breed of worms,’ the stock, if 
double-brooded, would speedily have been destroyed and lost by 
such interdiction. This, then, would tend to prove that the worm 
under cultivation was an annual only, and that the prohibition 
extended to other species. 
Introduction into Europe. 
From the year before Christ 2,640 until 550, or thereabouts, of 
the Christian era, the domestication of the worm appears to have been 
exclusively confined to China, severe punishments being inflicted 
upon any one who ventured to attempt its exportation into other 
countries, when, at length, about the latter year, through the 
Jaudable zeal of missionary monks who had visited China and 
there learnt the mode of cultivation, the eggs were secretly con- 
veyed into Europe and presented to the Emperor Justinian. 
Constitution impaired by Domestication. 
Thus, for a period of more than 3,000 years, the so-called cul- 
tivation of the worm had remained exclusively in Chinese hands. 
What wonder, then, if the constitution of the insect had during 
that time been gradually undermined by a course of imperfect 
feeding, close and tainted atmosphere and various other enervating 
causes, until, at length, when imported into the West, it no longer 
retained its natural vigour, health and original characteristics, but 
had become enfeebled, degenerated and sluggish, by a long 
system of interbreeding with debilitated stock, and rendered 
liable, by the loss of constitution, to a multitude of diseases ! 
From the time of its introduction into Europe, the treatment it 
has experienced has been, with some modifications, nearly the 
same as that pursued in China; so that for an uninterrupted 
period of no less than 4,500 years, the worm has had to contend 
against all those unnatural and purely artificial influences arising 
from a state of domestication, which we erroneously persist in 
