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and the first would in two or three days from that time be undergoing the last 
moult prior to spinning. Thus, owing to the extraordinary warmth of the 
season, a second brood would be obtained, and, by commencing earlier in the 
year than he had done, this might be made more certain; indeed Lady Dorothy 
Nevill had her second brood spun up in cocoon in September. The silk was for the 
first forty-eight hours quite white; it then became moist, especially at the lower end of 
the cocoon (perhaps from some emission of the caterpillar), and the colour changed to 
dirty gray. The larve, cocoons and moths all seemed to be finer in this country than 
in France, as if the soil and climate were more suitable ; and all that was now required 
was machiuery to wind the silk, which had not yet been done in this country, though 
it had in France and Italy. Dr. Wallace considered the experiment a great success, 
and thought the possibility of cultivating the silk-worm in this country was proved ; 
ailanthiculture had one great advantage over the culture of the mulberry silk-worm, 
inasmuch as a crop of silk might be obtained from the Ailanthus tree in its third or 
fourth year, and in ils teuth year it would be in full bearing, whereas it took from 
twenty to twenty-five years to establish a plantation of mulberry-trees. It might be 
roughly calculated that the trees might be planted at the rate of one to every square 
yard, and one tree would yield fifty cocoons ; 1000 cocoons would produce 1 Ib. of silk, 
which might be estimated to be worth £1 when spun: on the other hand, one boy 
could attend to an acre of silk-worms, and all the manipulation of the worms might 
be done by women and children of ten years old, so that the expenses would be 
trifling. 
Mr. Scudder mentioned that in America use had been made of the larve of 
Bombyx Cynthia to make from the silken matter contained within them the fine lines 
by which fish-hooks were fastened. He also referred to the success of M. Trouvelot in 
cultivating the oak-feeding Bombyx Polyphemus (vide ante, p. 93), of which he had 
brought over some cocoons for M. Guerin-Meéneville. M. Trouvelot had found the 
birds to be his greatest enemies. 
Mr. W. W. Saunders said the Ailanthus would grow almost anywhere, and seemed 
to prefer a stiff soil; he had it growing on clay, and it had flowered, fruited and seeded. 
With reference to Prof. Westwood’s statement, at the previous Meeting, as to the com- 
parative density and tenacity of Ailanthus, oak and elm, he remarked that the qualities 
which made wood useful as timber were strength, elasticity and durability, and that 
Ailanthus was a poor and insignificant wood, and, like all quick-growing woods, would 
be useless as timber. 
The Rev. Hamlet Clark drew attention to a letter signed “S.G.O.” in ‘The 
Times’ of the 30th of September, on the subject of the prevailing disease amongst 
cattle, in which the author suggested a connexion between the extraordinary atmo- 
spheric condition of the present season and the cholera, rinderpest, and other epidemics 
which were rife. The following is an extract :— 
“ Some particular atmospheric action, acting per se or in combination with existing 
matters, whatever they may be, is at work pestilentially affecting animal life. If we 
had the same opportunities for observation, and an equal interest in using them, I have 
no doubt that we should find there is disease in the insect world, probably in all living 
creatures, or at least in very many classes of them. * * * * It is reasonable to 
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