Restoration of the Silkworm. 151 
be; and yet, in spite of common sense and twenty-five years’ 
experience, | am modestly required to believe that the worm is 
not diseased! What then, in such case, is the meaning of the 
panic in France and Italy ? 
It is to be remembered, however, that all my sickly worms 
were of the white variety, and that the few dark worms picked 
out from them escaped disease altogether, although reared in the 
same manner, in the same room, in the same temperature, on the 
same quality of food, and in close contiguity to the others. These 
dark ones in due time spun cocoons and produced moths, which, 
coupling inter se, deposited a fair stock of eggs, with which the 
experiment was again carried on in the spring of 1863. 
I may here observe that it is a well-known fact that the more 
numerous are these dark-coloured worms in any brood, the 
healthier is it considered to be, and vice versd. 
Now the eggs furnished by Mr. Cope in the spring of 1862 
produced very few dark worms, while the eggs from dark worms 
descended from them produced in 1863 an undue number of white 
worms, which had to be weeded out, and proving at the same 
time the extreme weakness of constitution of the stock upon 
which I was experimenting. 
Again, another proof of disease is found in the fact that in the 
spring of 1862, the eggs received from Urmitsir were all loose and 
detached: this is characteristic of the species whether in India 
or in Europe, and proceeds from weakness in the glands attached 
to the ovipositor, and which do not, in consequence, secrete the 
gum necessary to attach the egg. A few will of course always be 
found to adhere at first, but so slightly that the least touch causes 
them to fall. 
In the spring of 1863 the eggs obtained in the previous year 
from the dark stock began to hatch on the 16th of March, and no 
sign of disease was apparent among them until the moths came 
forth from the cocoons, when many of these still showed defect in 
the malformation and dark spotting of the wings. As compared, 
however, with the previous year there was decided improvement ; 
there were still too many white worms in the brood, but they did 
not show any symptoms of disease and none died; they attained 
to a larger size by a quarter of an inch, increasing from. three to 
three and a quarter inches in length; they produced, in conse- 
quence, larger cocoons, though still deficient in silk, and the 
moths, although still showing the presence of disease, laid good 
sized eggs, great numbers of which adhered firmly to the paper 
upon which they were deposited, and indeed one sheet of paper 
