30 



shillings, if he requires to buy them. The eggs are made over to 

 the women of the family, who alone are permitted to attend to 

 them. These women while thus employed are required to exercise 

 the strictest personal cleanliness (and to confine themselves to 

 certain kinds of food even in some families). The eggs are ranged 

 on shelves in dark rooms during the first week after they are 

 hatched. The worms are fed with very young mulberry leaf. At 

 the end of the second and third weeks they receive older and 

 stronger leaf ; in the fourth week they are considered full-grown, 

 and are supplied with abundance of full grown leaf. During the 

 first three weeks a light is kept in the room, but for one night 

 only in each week. During the fourth week a light is burned 

 every night and a fire is kept up if the weather is cold. Towards 

 the end of the fourth week the worms become gorged and refuse 

 food, a sign that they are ready to spin. They are then put out 

 in the sunshine for a few hours, or near a fire, if the weather be 

 cold and cloudy, and soon commence work. In about two days 

 the worm has* finished his cocoon, and in about seven days he 

 commences cutting his way out at one end of it. If he succeeds, 

 he emerges as a small white moth, but the cocoon is rendered 

 useless by being cut. In order therefore to prevent this the 

 cocoons are baked before the worms commence to liberate them- 

 selves, and this kills them in the cocoons ; the latter are then 

 placed in hot water and the silk is reeled from them very easily. 

 The best cocoons are generally reserved for breeding purposes. 

 !From these the moths are allowed to escape, and they breed 

 almost immediately ; then eggs are laid and hatched within two 

 days, and from these a new supply of cocoons is obtained within 

 five weeks. Under ordinary circumstances, from one pound weight 

 of cocoons reserved for breeding 100 pounds of cocoons are 

 produced, and very frequently 200 and even 300 pounds are the 

 result of one breeding. 



6. The worms are fed exclusively on mulberry leaves gathered, 

 not from trees as in Europe, but from plants very carefully 

 cultivated in fields set apart for them ; the leaves are plucked 

 five or six times in one year from each plant, and the owner so 

 arranges as to have always ready leaf of different growths suited 

 for the worms of various growths which are reared in his house. 



7. In Mr. Veyrin's opinion, an insuperable difficulty is presented 

 to the transport to Australia of eggs of the family referred to in 

 paragraph No. 5, in this, that even if the hatching of the eggs 

 could be delayed by keeping them very carefully from the air in 

 transit, as they would hatch immediately on exposure to it ; after 

 arrival, the worms would perish without a supply of food of the 

 tender leaves of the mulberry, and in Australia it would be 

 impossible probably to command a supply of such food for every 

 new generation of worms. He states that eggs of the species 

 breeding annually have been conveyed to Europe very successfully 



