Insects. 2677 



Singular Recipe for creating Silkworms, a Fact for the Vestigians. — Having lately 

 met with a very odd account of the mode of producing silkworms, I take this oppor- 

 tunity of forwarding it, thinking it may afford some amusement to the readers of the 

 ' Zoologist,' and also be considered curious as affording some insight into the ento- 

 mological knowledge of our ancestors. The article is contained in a work called 

 ' The Laboratory or School of Arts,' by G. Smith, 8vo, 1750: this was the third edi- 

 tion of the book, so that we may suppose it was held in some estimation : it contains 

 a number of recipes in refining, &c, of metals; choice secrets for jewellers; experi- 

 ments in casting in various ways ; glass-making; valuable secrets for cutlers, &c. ; 

 the art of preparing rockets, squibs and crackers ; various uncommon chemical expe- 

 riments ; the art of dyeing, &c, &c. ; and is said to be compiled from the German 

 and other foreign authors. At page 237 we have an article entitled " Of the Gene- 

 ration of Silkworms out of Veal," the process for doing which is as follows : — " Take 

 about ten or twelve pounds of veal, all meat without bones, warm, and as soon as it is 

 killed ; chop this with a chopping-knife as fine as you can, and afterwards put it into 

 a new earthen pot, thus : at the bottom make a layer of mulberry leaves, then a layer 

 of veal, and thus proceed till your pot is full. Then cover the top with mulberry 

 leaves, and take an old shirt which has been well worn and sweated in by a labouring 

 man ; put this at top upon the leaves, and then tie the pot close with leather. After 

 this is done set the pot into a cellar which is not too cool, but something warm and 

 damp ; let it stand for three or four weeks, till the veal turns to maggots, which hap- 

 pens sometimes sooner sometimes later, according to the nature of the place into 

 which you put it. Of these maggots take as many as you will, and set them upon 

 fresh mulberry leaves, which they will eat, change their form to silkworms, will soon 

 content themselves with that nutriment, and spin and generate like other silkworms. 

 I have produced them twice, not without the admiration of the late Mr. Sturiing, and 

 yet I am of opinion that this generation is not of both, but only of one kind ; and the 

 same opinion I have of toads or frogs which are produced out of barren earth. The 

 time wherein silkworms are to be raised is in the beginning of July to the eighth of 

 that month, when the process is to begin. Vida, in his second book of Silkworms, 

 teaches, if a young ox is fed with mulberry leaves, that out of his body after he is 

 killed will grow silkworms." Reference is then made to a note, which says, " Since 

 the publication of the second edition we have met with an authentic account, in the 

 Breslaw Philosophical Collections, of a process made by Dr. Lanckish, physician at 

 Lignitz, in Silesia, in the most nicest (sic) manner ; but after having tried various ex- 

 periments, for several summers successively, he never could produce any real silk- 

 worms, but the putrefaction of the veal he has prepared, according to the directions 

 given above, turned first into large maggots, and having spun themselves into cryso- 

 lites (sic) they became afterwards beautiful large flies. But as the above account is 

 attested by several credible authors we would not omit it in this edition, for the fur- 

 ther search and enquiry of the curious." There are several other recipes of the same 

 kind in the book, relating to the generation of eels, serpents and crawfish, and also a 

 mode of regenerating plants ; all equally curious and equally certain. — John Wil- 

 liams ; Royal Astronomical Society, Somerset House, December 6, 1849. 



Atherix Ibis. — With regard to Sir Oswald Mosley's interesting observations (Zool. 



2586) on the economy of this insect, I may observe that a similar cluster of them was 



sent to me many years since, comprising both sexes, — and it is remarkable, but they 



were principally males ; whilst another conglomerated body of them, completely 



VIII G 



