122 THE TUSSEH SILKWORM MOTH. 



or perhaps one, two, or three days, a flight of males 

 arrive, settle on the branches, and impregnate the 

 females ; by the bye, the hill people calculate good 

 or ill fortune in proportion to the speedy or tardy 

 arrival of the stranger males. These insects die as 

 soon as the purposes of nature are effected, and the 

 females live only to produce the eggs on the branches 

 of the trees, and then expire. In regard to the 

 Bughy species, they all take flight, females as well 

 as males, and hence the natives firmly believe that 

 they are all males, though I cannot see any physical 

 reason for supposing them so. I have frequently 

 endeavoured to detain the males of the Jarroo spe- 

 cies, and have kept them locked up in a box for 

 that purpose ; but whether they did not like to 

 make free with their female relations, or from what 

 other cause I know not, but I could never obtain a 

 breed in the domestic state, and the efforts of the 

 male to escape were wonderful, and at last always 

 effectual. The accounts given by the natives of? 

 the distance to which the male insects fly are very 

 astonishing. I have put, at different times and 

 occasions, innumerable questions to them on thia 

 subject, and they assure me that it is no uncommon 1 

 practice amongst them to catch some of the male 

 moths, and put a mark on their wings previous to 

 letting them fly, the marks of different districts be* 

 ing known. I am told that it has been thus ascer- 4 

 tained that male moths have come from a distance 



