Insects. 9257 
Life-History of Saturnia Mylitta, the Tusseh Silkworm. By Captain 
Jutian Hopson, H.M. Bombay Staff Corps. 
I BEG to send you a few notes on the Saturnia Mylitta, or Tusseh 
silk-moth: as the subject of Tusseh silk is at the present moment 
attracting some attention, I trust a few words on the cultivation and 
habits of the larva may be acceptable. 
For the last seven or eight years I have yearly procured about a 
hundred cocoons of this magnificent moth; they are to be found in 
great abundance in the Tanna districts (in the Coucan or lower 
Ghauts), about forty miles from Bombay, and though I have at times 
had as many as four or five females out in an evening, and about as 
_ many males, strange to say I never, until the 2nd of last May, 
succeeded in finding them in coitu: the next evening the male left 
his mate and flew away; a few hours afterwards she deposited a 
number of eggs, and about the same number the following evening. 
I left the paper covered with the eggs exposed to the open air, and, 
to my astonishment, on the 12th (nine days after the first batch of 
eggs was laid) a small brood made their appearance: being quite un- 
prepared for such a sudden arrival of these little creatures, I was 
quite at a loss what to feed them on. I tried them on the common 
mulberry, Ziziphus jujuba, Getonia floribunda, but the little fastidious 
things would not touch any of these leaves; at last I tried them on 
the Pentaptera coriacea (a tree very common in the Coucan), which 
I was pleased to find they greedily attacked. 
The small larve on emerging from their eggs, which are about the 
size of a Jowaree seed (Holcus sorghwm), with a black horizontal ring 
round them, measure about three lines in length, slightly hairy, and of 
a brownish tinge, with two rows of small tubercles along the back and 
two along either side, from each of which protrude small black hairs ; 
the two posterior tubercles are close to each other and thickly covered 
with small black hairs; there is also an anal tubercle situated between 
the two last dorsal tubercles; head very dark brown, almost black, 
with a small circle of hairs round it. 
On the 15th of May the first moult took place, when the larve 
became a dark green colour, the tubercles a shade lighter, the hairs 
proceeding from them scarcely visible, but the tufts of hairs on the 
posterior and anal tubercles jet-black. On the 17th the second moult 
took place, when the larve became a lovely yellowish green, tubercles 
beaded with bright orange, with six black short rigid hairs proceeding 
VOL. XXII. 3E 
