( 443 ) 
XXIII. Remarks on Captain Hutton’s Paper “‘ On the 
Reversion and Restoration of the Silkworm.” By 
Captain J. MircuEx., Superintendent of the Govern- 
ment Museum, Madras. (Communicated by the Sz- 
CRETARY.) | 
[Read 6th November, 1865.] 
Tue passage in Captain Hutton’s Paper with which my remarks 
are concerned is as follows :— 
“Tn the introductory remarks to my ‘ Monograph on the Genus 
Attacus,’ IT have shown, after Kirby and Spence and other autho- 
rities, that the gum from the reservoirs, being conveyed to the 
mouth by the constriction of certain muscles, passes through two 
small orifices in the lip, and the two fibres thus formed, being taken 
up and tnisted together by the hook-like processes in the mouth 
appointed to that office, become one fibre of silk on coming into 
contact with the cold external air.”* (The Italics are mine.) 
Now it is quite certain the authorities referred to by Captain 
Hutton could not have examined, with sufficient optical assistance, 
silk taken directly from the cocoon, or they would have seen that 
no such twisting takes place, but that the two filaments are laid side 
by side in the cocoon, and adhere together until separated by the 
solution of the gum in the process of manufacture. I have 
examined cocoons, and reeled raw silks, contained in the Museum 
Collection, and have, in every instance, found a double filament. 
But in bleached spun silk the filaments are single, because the 
gum which held them together has been washed away in the 
process of bleaching. 
I have only the introduction to Kirby and Spence, which does 
not contain the information referred to by Captain Hutton, but I 
am aware that other writers, upon whose authority we ought to be 
able to rely, have stated that the silkworm spins a single thread— 
such, for instance, as T. R. Jones, at p. 297 of the first edition 
of his undoubtedly interesting work ** A General Outline of the 
Animal Kingdom;” Dr. Carpenter, at p. 110 of the second 
volume of his “ Zoology ;” “The Micrographic Dictionary,” at 
p- 360 of the first edition, article “Spinning Organs ;” and there 
are probably other authorities that might be quoted who have said 
* Vide ante, p.159. 
KK 2 
