296 Captain T. Hutton on the 
of natural freedom, the healthy condition of the mulberry leaf 
until the commencement of the winter months is indispensable, and 
such a condition of things is obtainable only in a warm and 
probably humid climate. 
At Mussooree in the North-Western Himalaya, nature herself 
speaks forcibly in support of this view when she presents for our 
consideration twelve wild species of the Bombycide, eleven of 
which are here strictly annuals, and one only is double-brooded, 
though some of these in warmer parts of India are found, even in 
the wild state, to yield two and even three broods. 
Meditating on this fact, it occurred to me that if this could be 
relied uponas a distinguishing feature, the annual domestic worms 
would doubtless, on investigation, be found to be specifically dis- 
tinct from the so-called “monthly worms,” and ‘the result has 
proved the correctness of this view, the Cashmere and Bokhara 
Annual being not only distinct from the Bengal Annual (Boro- 
pooloo), but both are distinct from the “ Nistry,” the ‘* Dasee,” and 
the small Chinese species Cheena, which are distinguished as 
monthly worms. Were they not specifically distinct, why do not 
the annuals when cultivated in Bengal become monthly, like the 
others? or, again, why do not the monthlies become annuals in the 
North? By their not undergoing these changes we are furnished 
with proof that it is not a change of climate which makes the 
alteration, but that nature has stamped them with distinctive 
characters and habits. 
We have all read or heard of complaints in regard to the un- 
certain quality of the silk sent as that of Bombyx Mori to 
Europe from Bengal, and that it is on that account held in less 
estimation than silks from other countries, This variation in 
quality arises from the cultivation of these several distinct species 
under the name of B. Mori, precisely as all Eria silks were sup- 
posed to be derived from Attacus Cynthia. ‘These worms being 
of different sizes and always much smaller than the larve of B. 
Mori (which species by the way is not cultivated at all in Bengal), 
must necessarily produce a silken fibre of far greater fineness than 
it; from which it results that not only is the reeled silk much finer 
than that of the true B. Mori, but each Bengal worm differs from 
the other in the thickness of its fibre, and as all goes home nomi- 
ually as the produce of the same worm, no wonder that an outcry 
is raised about the uncertain thickness of the fibre. 
This discovery of several distinct species confounded under the 
name of B. Mori, although admitted by competent judges in 
Europe, has in India been sneered at, and the differences percep- 
