DIRECT BENEFITS FROM MOTHS. 66 



account of a moth found in America, which produces 

 a cocoon, heavier and more productive than that of 

 the common Silk Worm ; it, besides, has the quality 

 of being greatly stronger, for it has been found by 

 Latreille, that twenty filaments will bear an ounce 

 more weight than the same number of ordinary silk.* 

 The inhabitants of Chimpaucing, Textula, and 

 other places of South America, manufacture stockings 

 and handkerchiefs from the ovate nests of caterpillars, 

 which feed on the leaves of Psydium pyniferum and 

 pomiferum.-^ These nests are eight inches long, and 

 of a gray colour. 



In an extensive and fertile valley, 10,500 feet above 

 the level of the sea, in the mountains of Santarosa, 

 at Valladolid, one of the twelve intendencies into 

 which Mexico is now divided, upon the shrub Arbutus 

 Madrono, as well as other trees, Baron Humboldt 

 observed immense numbers of nests similar to those 

 last described. They, however, differed so far, in 

 being of a dense tissue, very similar to Chinese paper, 

 of the most immaculate and shining whiteness. They 

 were formed into separable tissues, the innermost 

 being thinner than all the others, exceedingly thin and 

 pellucid. These were named the Eombyx Madrono, 

 from the plant on which they feed, by Humboldt. 

 They are social caterpillars, and these nests are formed 

 by their united labours. The manufacture of this 



* LATREILLE, Hist. Nat. xiv. p. 150. 

 f Annals of Botany, vol. ii. p. 104. 



