26 



napoor district they are boiled in cowdung and reeled by- 

 hand. 



Captain Brooke says that in Seonee the pierced 

 cocoons are wound, and that no koshtee rejects a cocoon 

 simply because the moth has eaten its way through it. He 

 has fallen into an error in stating the moth's mode of exit 

 from its cocoon. It does not eat its way out, but separates 

 the fibres with its legs and wing spine, and so creeps out. 

 It has neither teeth nor mouth proper. 



Each species of silkworm has two stores of silk, one on 

 each side of the alimentary canal, and below its mouth it 

 has two so-called spinnarets or orifices, through which the 

 silk issues simultaneously in fine parallel filaments. As 

 the silk is drawn out of the stores, the worm coats it with 

 a varnish technically called gum, which contains a brownish- 

 yellow colouring matter. 



The Tusser worm, in spinning its cocoon, takes short 

 sweeps of its head from side to side, depositing the silk 

 very closely in parallel fibres, which take a zigzag course 

 round the cocoon as he does so. It has been thought 

 that the worm twists or spins the silk as it exudes it, 

 but this is not the case. Besides the gum which coats the 

 silk, the worm secretes at intervals a cementing fluid, which 

 it kueads by an expanding motion of its body through the 

 whole cocoon to consolidate and harden it. This cement 

 gives to the cocoon its drab colour. 



There is a striking peculiarity about the fibre of Tusser 

 silk. I have carefully and thoroughly examined it many 

 times under the microscope, and find undoubtedly that it is 

 almost flat (Plate XXVIII., Figs 3 and 4), and not round, 

 as is the case in the silk produced by the mulberry-fed worm 

 Bombyx mori (Plate XXVIII., Figs. 1 and 2). 



There is no doubt that it is to this property that Tusser 

 silk owes its glassy or vitreous look, reflecting a little glare 

 of light from the angle of incidence on its flat surface, 

 whilst the mulberry- silk fibre, being round, reflects the 

 light in all directions. 



By some this property is considered a drawback, but by 

 the time the fibre has become modified and the flatness 

 diffused in the loom I think the lustre of the cloth is en- 

 hanced by it. 



This tape-like appearance gives the fibre this disadvan- 

 tage, that it is less homogeneous than the round fibre of 

 the mulberry silk, and 1 find an undoubted tendency in 

 it to split up into smaller fibrets, of which the fibre 

 is evidently composed, causing the silk to swell out 



