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5. I shall despatch by Bhanghy post specimens of the various 

 kinds of silk, raw and manufactured, as requested in your 2nd 

 paragraph ; and eggs of all the varieties shall also be sent packed 

 in the manner described by Dr. Bennett, and also in bottles, as 

 suggested by Mr. William Becher, who at one time cultivated silk 

 extensively here. I have desired the district officers to collect 

 seeds of as many of the trees mentioned by Dr. Bennett as 

 possible, and these I shall also forward to you on receipt. 



Memorandum on the Silkworms of Assam. 



Mooga. (Otherwise ' Moogah-, Moonaa, or Mungati) Antheroea 

 Assama or Saturnin Assanunsis. This is the commonest silkworm 

 in Assam, and its produce is second in estimation, that of the 

 "pat" worm being superior. It is bred and treated in the fol- 

 lowing manner : On the third day after the cocoons have been 

 completed the cultivator sets apart a certain number for breed- 

 ing, choosing those which were commenced on the day when the 

 greatest number of worms began to spin. These are kept in 

 open-work bamboo baskets in a dark, secure place in the house ; 

 and in a certain number of days, varying from ten to twenty, 

 according to the state of the weather heat accelerating and 

 cold retarding the development the moths emerge. The males, 

 known in the cocoon by the sharpness and length of the " tail" of 

 the cocoon, and in the moth stage as being smaller than the 

 females, are left with the females for a day, and all are then 

 placed on bunches of grass, generally the " ooloo" grass, in pieces 

 of 18 inches in length and 3 in circumference, or on strips of 

 bamboo fastened to a rope and suspended from the roof, and the 

 females are tied to the grass or bamboo by their wings with pieces 

 of thread. In about three days the eggs are laid and remain 

 attached to the bundles of grass. The cultivator only keeps those 

 laid in the first three or four days, the rest are supposed to be 

 useless. In about ten days the period varies with the weather 

 as above-mentioned the young worms appear, and in some places 

 are fed for a day or two in the house with tender leaves, and 

 then or in places where this practice is not resorted to, imme- 

 diately on the worms being hatched the bundles of grass are 

 taken out and tied on the trunks of sooaloo or soom trees. Great 

 care is taken previous to this to clear the soom groves of ants and 

 other insects inimical to the rnooga, for which purpose all under- 

 growth is destroyed, and the ants, &c., having been collected 

 by baits of molasses, plantains, decomposed fish, &c., &c., are 

 burnt wholesale. The worms, crawling up the trees, feed first 

 on the smaller and afterwards on the larger leaves, and are 

 prevented from coming down by a band of plantain or other 

 smooth leaf, over which they are unab]e to move, fastened round 



