300 Captain T. Hutton on the 
generally in France and throughout Europe. The cocoon is a 
yellow of different degrees of intensity. 
Now the question arises—Are these to be considered as merely 
local and climatal varieties of B. Mori, or can any of them be 
regarded as true and distinct species ? 
With regard to No. 1, it is said that although in Italy nine out 
of ten cocoons are white, yet that in France the majority are 
yellow. No stress, therefore, can be laid upon the colour of the 
silk as a specific character, but a valid mark of distinction would 
(if there is no mistake) appear to exist in the fact of the worm 
undergoing only three moults instead of four as in all the others. 
That this worm, however, is not in a healthy state is clearly to 
be seen in the change produced on the colour of the silk by change 
of climate, the heat of Italy producing white, and the cooler and 
more natural temperature of France producing yellow cocoons. 
But if this worm be a mere variety of B. Mori induced by climate, 
Count Dandolo’s remark that the greater fineness of the silk is 
attributable to greater fineness in the silk-drawing tubes, at once 
proclaims the unhealthiness and degeneracy of the worm, which 
has dwindled down from its natural size and is no longer able to 
yield a fibre of the original thickness. If then this is a mere 
climatal variety of 6B. Mori, the peculiarities in its moulting, and 
the changeable colour and fineness of the silk, can be attributed 
to nothing else than loss of size and constitution. 
If climate has been the agent by which this variation has been 
brought about, how is it that the entire race of B. Mori has not 
been affected in a similar manner? Yet in Italy, in France and 
in other countries of Europe, B. Mor: still continues not only to 
hold its ground side by side with this supposed variety, but is in 
spite of climate stated to be still the commonest of all. 
An Indian sericulturist rising from the perusal of Reports on 
the Culture of Silk in various parts of the country, will find 
perhaps that no two of these agree in the length of time consumed 
between the hatching of the egg and the spinning of the cocoon. 
The explanation is, that the reports do not all apply to the same 
species, for at Madras and in Bengal proper, the true B. Mori 
is nowhere found, and it has only very recently been tried, and 
with no very encouraging success, in the North Western Pro- 
vinces of Upper India. But the time that elapses between the 
hatching of the egg and the spinning of the cocoon will vary 
even in the same species, according to the temperature in which 
the worm has been reared, and likewise, in some measure, accord- 
