BOMBYCIDS. 445 
are apt to be small in size, as the insect does not seem to thrive well 
in captivity. 
IT am in hopes of finding a method of breeding luna moths of 
good size, but so far the efforts of my brothers and self have re- 
sulted in pigmies. This insect is sometimes found in great abun- 
dance, and I have seen the sidewalk under an electric lamp littered 
with their wings, the insects attracted to the light having probably 
been devoured by bats. 
Cabinet specimens should be kept out of the light, or they will 
soon lose their beauty. A good-sized insect of this species will 
expand five inches. The females are generally of a bluish-green, 
while the males are more yellowish. The broad band along the 
upper margin of each fore wing, extending across the thorax, is 
purplsh-brown. On each wing is a transparent eve-like spot sur- 
rounded by rings of maroon, ochre-yellow and black. The body 
is very downy and cottony-white, and the antennw are ochre-yel- 
low. The insect has a wide range over a large part of the country. 
Allied species are found in Central America and in Japan and 
China. 
The silkworm par excellence (Bombyx mori), domesticated in 
China at a very early date, was long ago introduced into Europe and 
later into America, where it is still cultivated to a limited extent. 
The rearing of the larvee and reeling of the silk of this species has 
not met with the success predicted for silk culture in this country ; 
and although the government took up the problein in a_ scientific 
manner at their experimental station in the Agricultural Department 
in Washington, D. C., after a great many attempts covering several 
years, the enterprise was finally abandoned. One great obstacle in 
connection with the successful rearing of this insect in large num- 
bers is the fact that it thrives well only on the mulberry tree (its 
native food plant) and the osage orange, necessitating the cultiva- 
tion of these trees over large areas. It is also much less hardy than 
the larvee of most of our silk-spinning moths. The insects, too, are 
very susceptible to several contagious diseases which sometimes carry 
off hundreds of thousands in a single night. 
The female moth lays three hundred or more eggs, which are 
round and of a light yellow color, and are usually attached to the 
paper generally provided for this purpose by a secretion furnished by 
the moth. The eggs soon begin to turn dark, and the young cater- 
pillar when it makes its escape is dark gray, clothed with long hairs 
