18 



he can scarcely fail to realize good profits. But beside this, how many as yet 

 wholly untried species are there to be brought under cultivation for the first 

 time ; some even whose existence is only as yet suspected, and which will 

 have to be carefully sought for by an experienced eye. Some years ago, 

 when I asked permission to start upon such an errand, the Government 

 answered that " the subject was far too scientific to be entertained," and 

 my application was consequently refused. 



Now I am somewhat too old and shaky to carry out the wishes of those 

 days to their full extent, and yet if those worms are to be sought after and 

 cultivated, somebody will have to do the work, or half the resources of the 

 country in this branch will be cast away. There is no reason however why 

 the question should be " too scientific" for a practical sericulturist, because it 

 was so for the government officials of those days. If the cultivation of silk 

 in India is to be extended in earnest, it is with these wild worms that the 

 game must be played, for we already know that nothing can be gained by 

 introducing the Bombyces of China into localities where experience has shown 

 us that they cannot thrive. 



As when the trumpet sounds the old war-horse is said to sniff the battle 

 from afar, so the trumpet you have sounded in my ears has in some measure 

 reawakened a wish, if possible, to be of use in this important matter ; and 

 temporarily shutting my eyes to the disgust engendered by the treatment I 

 have hitherto received from various Governments as the reward of my long 

 continued endeavours to assist the sericulturist, a disgust which tempted me 

 to cast to the winds the experiments of several years, I shall still be happy 

 if by my advice and the little assistance I may be able to give, I can in 

 anywise promote the views and wishes of those who are now bestirring them- 

 selves in the matter of silk cultivation in India. In saying this however, I 

 must frankly confess that I am now but " the miserable remains of an ill 

 spent life," and have no longer either the health or the strength to enter into 

 much field work, and yet if I could procure good living samples either of the 

 eggs or cocoons of the various species of Anther oca, such as A. paphia, of 

 Palamow, and of the district round Colgong, of A. Frithii, A. Helferi, and 

 A. Assama, I should be very much tempted to begin my experiments again ; 

 with Bombyx I will have no more to do, for I am convinced that if anything 

 worthy of the name of silk extension is to be effected it must and can be done 

 only with the aid of the hitherto too much despised and neglected wild species. 

 Old friends, however, who some years since most liberally assisted me in 

 procuring what I wanted, have either left the districts from which my 

 best specimens were procured, or, as in several instances, have departed as I 

 hope to happier hunting grounds. 



Anth ronT. Assama in particular is a worm in which I have always had 

 great faith, and still think that it might become of the greatest value, yet I 

 have never been able to procure its eggs or cocoons in sufficient quantities to 

 enable me to judge from actual experiment what might eventually be effected. 

 As to Mr. Moore's imaginary species, which he has named Anthe r cca mezan- 

 koria, its existence as a species distinct from A. Assama is in my opinion 

 altogether apocryphal, the w^ord " mazankooree" being applied by the Assa- 

 mese not to a worm distinct from A. Assama, as he has been led to suppose, 

 but to a particular quality of the cocoon and silk of the latter, precisely as in 

 Beerbhoom the assorted cocoons and silk of A. papkia bear different distin- 

 guishing names, though all are procured from the same species. 



A parting word now with respect to the cultivated Mulberry Bombyces. 

 1. The common mulberry silkworm or type of the northern worms is the 

 well known B. mori, the largest of the genus known in India, and generally 

 called in this country the Cashmere worm, although equally well known 

 throughout Afghanistan, Bokhara, Persia, Syria, and all Europe. If this be 

 one of the species which it may be thought advisable, in spite of experience, 

 to introduce into the Plains, I say again beware, for the result of such an 

 attempt will only prove the truth of the old adage that "a fool and his money 



