132 THE ABRINDY SILKWORM MOTH. 



the country where this species of silkworm is culti 

 vated, and he laughed at my endeavours to ge 

 cocoons to reel ; asserting that it was impossible' 

 and that they were always spun off into a threa< : 

 like cotton by the women only : he attempted t 

 show me how, but made a very awkward hand o 

 it, and a very bad specimen of thread : the opera 

 tion, too, appeared tedious, so that I do not thinl 

 that any thing is to be expected from this insect 

 except as a natural curiosity.' 



" Mr John Glass, the surgeon at Bauglipore 

 writes to me as follows on the same subject : 



" ' I am glad to hear you have got the worn 

 that feeds on the Ricimts, but sorry to say there i 

 no possibility of winding off the silk from the cones 

 Inclosed is a little of some I bred a few years ago 

 when I sent a quantity of it to the directors, bu 

 have never received an answer. I at the sam 

 time sent a little to my friends in England, am 

 I understand that some manufacturers, to whom ill 

 was shown, seemed to think that we had been de* 1 

 ceiving them by our accounts of the shawls beinj 

 made from the wool of a goat ; and that this Rici. 

 nus silk, if sent home, could be made into shawli 

 equal to any manufactured in India.' " 



Extract of a letter on the same subject front! 

 Henry Creighton, Esq. of Malda, dated 12th Febru- 

 ary, 1800. 



Some of the silk of this worm, which was brought 



