SILK-PRODUCING LEPIDOPTERA. 157 



These 14 butterflies are not in any way different from other 

 Freiburg carduiy neither do they differ among themselves in 

 marking or colour, apart from quite insignificant individual 

 differences, such as are never absent. All 14 have relatively 

 much blue in the eye-spots on the under side of the hind wings. 



(To be continued.) 



SILK-PRODUCING LEPIDOPTERA. 

 By Alfked Wailly. 



(Membre Laureat de la Societe Nationale d'Acclimatation de France). 



In consequence of the enormous losses experienced in the 

 production of the mulberry silk, during a number of years, 

 owing to the various diseases which attacked the Bombyx mori 

 worms, the attention of sericulturists of various countries was 

 drawn to several species of wild silkworms of Asia, America, 

 and other parts, and experiments were made in Europe, with 

 more or less success, with the oak silkworms {Yama-mdi and 

 Pernyi) and also with Cynthia (Ailanthus silkworm). 



The results of these trials were recorded in various papers, 

 and my own reports on the rearing of about twenty species 

 of wild silkworms were published annually, during a succession 

 of years, in the * Bulletin de la Societe d'Acclimatation de 

 France,' Paris; the ' Journal of the Society of Arts,' London ; 

 and other publications. 



As I stated in an article in the 'Entomologist' (xxiii. 119), 

 four species of wild silkworms with ** closed " cocoons can be 

 reared in the open air in Europe, even in northern parts ; they 

 all produce excellent silk, which can be reeled like that of Bombyx 

 mori, and they are the following : — Anthercea pemyi (North China 

 oak silkworm); A. yama-mdi (Japanese oak silkworm) ; A. roylei 

 (Himalayan oak silkworm) ; and Telea polyphemus (a poly- 

 phagous North American silkworm). To these four may be 

 added two other species with *' open " cocoons : Attacus cynthia, 

 and Platysamia cecropia (a polyphagous North American silk- 

 worm). But the two species best adapted for rearing in the 

 open air in England and other northern countries are Anthercea 

 pernyi and Attacus cyiithia. Referring to the diseases which 

 attack the mulberry silkworm, I will quote a passage from one 

 of my reports, the one for the year 1883, in the ' Journal of the 

 Society of Arts ' :^ " Worms reared in a state of captivity in 

 warm rooms or ' magnaneries,' as the mulberry silkworm is, 

 are all liable to the terrible contagious diseases which, for years, 

 have attacked the latter to such an extent as to make the supply 

 of mulberry silk considerably smaller than it used to be. In 



