412 Correspondence of J. Nickles. 
Objections have been made to the introduction of silkworms afford- 
ing silk of an reruns quality. It is said that the ordinary silkworm is 
sufficient and that its production may be easily increased by extending its — 
culture, so that France would not have to pay out to foreigners several 
millions of franes for raw silk for its manufactures ; and also that the 
Indian silkworm is better. This is like ae to the introduction of 
the ass because the horse is a superior anim: : 
The great defender of both indigenous nal exotic oienoene M. 
Guérin Méneville, well known by his numerous works in Natural His- 
Bulletin of the Zoological Society of Acclimation. He has founded, in 
connection with E. Roberts, at St. Tulle (Dep. of the Basses-Alpes) a 
Sericicole Institute (Institut eo in which they give gratuitously 
a theoretical and practical course silk industry. There are stu- 
dents there from different parts of + pat besides some from foreign 
countries ; they assist in the labors of acclimation and amelioration of 
races-which M. Guérin Méneville has undertaken, ap savant giving, 
with rare AT Se Css six months of each year to these labo 
 Anesthesis of Be es.—Apiculturists often find it deoasiie “ sto 
pefy when, for instance, there _ two feeble swarms and it is 
best to kill the queen of one. In Brittany, as well as in Alsace, the 
smoke of a common puffball, Exyeaperdon mene —* has been em- 
t their honey. Dr. de Beauvoys has taken up this subject, and has 
found that the best species for the purpose is the Lycoperdon gigan- 
teum. In using it,a piece of the Lycoperdon is put on burning charcoal 
contained in a chafing dish and covered with’ a funnel of stoneware, 
and the smoke is directed from it into the suspended hive: a cloth laid 
on the ground receives the bees as they fall. The experiments have 
been repeated before the Zoological _<aeapegy in which the stupefaction 
of the bees continued for half an hour. 
Pisciculture.—This important subject has oecupied much the 
Society of Acclimation. A method has now been ascertained by which 
we may know the maturity of the eggs of certain fishes, a method 
which has been arrived at through the researches of MM. Valen- 
ciennes and Frémy on the eggs of osseous fishes. . These investigators 
have found that i eggs, while adhering to the ovarian lamella, give 
certain fishes are ready for fecundation when they give no precipitate 
with — water. Ina this trial with the ghee for example, an 
egg is taken and broken upon a plate of glass, and a drop of: pure mes 
ter press : if the liquid is not clear the egg is not mature. 
Production of Alcohol.—The question bearing on the cheap pro- 
duction of not made much progress since my last commu- 
nication. New projects and new. processes have been sent to the So- 
ciété d’ Encouragement panne appearing to resolve the aa ap As- 
phodel, in this connection, Diperpere seh yng wat ecord- 
fog io Dunas, the quantity of bulbs of apodel Algeria is enormous, 
