160 Captain T. Hutton on the 
always that the worms are of equal size; and that simply owing 
to the regulating organ above mentioned. The quality of the silk 
comprises thickness of fibre, tenacity and elasticity, and where 
the secreting glands are not affected by disease, this quality, from 
worms equally well fed, will be the same even where the general 
health of the one is far inferior to the other; indeed it is the 
quantity, rather than the quality, of the silk that is affected by the 
maladies under which the worms are now labouring. The cocoons 
reared in Oudh by Colonel Clark, and pronounced by Mr. Cope, 
in epistold, to be ‘the finest he had seen in India,” produced, on 
being reeled, a silk of precisely the same quality as that produced 
at Umritsir, and by my Mussooree cocoons reared from Mr. Cope’s 
supply of diseased eggs in 1862, and which, as cocoons, were 
absolutely worthless, there being little or no silk inthem. Dr. 
Bonavia’s cocoons, raised in Oudh in 1863, from seed furnished 
by Mr. Cope, yielded a silk in no respect inferior to the above, 
although the pound of silk requiring 5,200 cocoons to produce it 
proved how terribly deficient was the quantity of gum secreted. 
In cases where the glands are affected by disease, or where the 
leaf has not contained a proper proportion of silk-yielding matter, 
no silk at all will be secreted, and the worm will either die as 
such, or become a pupa without spinning. Many cases of this 
kind occur in all the broods, whether monthly or annual. 
To talk, as some do, of coarse leaves producing a coarse silk, 
and therefore recommending the use of such as are thin and 
tender, is at once to prove non-acquaintance with the anatomy of 
the insect and ignorance of the whole art of nourishing the worm, 
since, as already pointed out, the thickness of the silk fibre is 
regulated by Nature, and a thin fibre produced by a worm, which, 
like B. Mori, ought to yield one of a certain thickness, is a positive 
proof of the presence of disease, inasmuch as it indicates the 
decreasing size of the orifices, consequent on the deterioration 
and degeneracy of the worm. ‘The orifices in the lip being of a 
regulated size, no extra-natural coarseness of fibre can be pro- 
duced, and no coarseness of leaf could ever make the fibre thicker 
than Nature intended it to be, or than those orifices were capable 
of admitting, simply because it is a well-ascertained fact that “a 
camel cannot pass through the eye of a needle.” 
Remarks on “ the Diet of Worms.” 
_ Having been frequently applied to from different quarters for 
information as to the best kind of mulberry leaf on which to rear 
the silkworm, it may be as well perhaps to give the result of my 
