No. 2. ] Wild Silk Insects of India. 7 1 



are from colored drawings made some years ago by the Museum 

 artist, Behari Lai Dos, under the direction of the Superintendent of the 

 Indian Museum. The figure of the cocoon of Theophila affitiis is a photo- 

 graph kindly taken by Mr. Wood-Mason. The figures of Aiitheraa 

 yammnai and A. pernyi are after figures published in the Rev. et Mag- 

 de Zool. and the Tijd. Voor. Ent. in illustration of papers by Guerin 

 Meueville and Westmaas. The figure of the larva of Ocinara lactea is 

 after one published in the Trans, Ent. Soc, Lond., in illustration of a 

 paper by Captain Hutton. The remaining figures have been made from 

 the specimens by the Museum artist, Grish Chuuder Chuckerbutty, under 

 the direction of the writer. 



Attacus atlas, Linn. Plate 2, jig. 1. 



This moth is well known on account of its great size, some of the- 

 specimens in the Indian Museum being more than ten inches across 

 from tip to tip of wings. It is common on the slopes of hill ranges 

 all over India and Burma; and, according to Gosse, ranges in South- 

 Eastern Asia over 35° of latitude and 55° of longitude, being abund- 

 ant in China and scattered over the whole of the Malay Archipelago. 



The life history of the insect has been fully described by Gosse 

 (Entomologist XII, p. 25), Manuel (Journ. Agri. Hort. Soc. Ind. 

 n. s. Vol. VII, p. 291), and by Brownlow (Journ, Agri. Hort. Soc. 

 Ind. n. s. Vol. V, p. 183). According to Manuel the insect spins once 

 a year in its natural state, though in domestication in Burma it wil[ 

 spin twice or even three times, — once at the commencement of the rains, 

 once during the rains, and again at the close of the rains, the best 

 cocoons being those formed towards the beginning of the cold weather. 

 The female moth is very sluggish, and seldom flies; the male, which 

 has a powerful flight, usually seeking her out and fertilizing her as she 

 clings to the cocoon from which she has emerged ; for this purpose the 

 male is furnished with some sense, probably of smell, which enables him 

 to find the female unerringly, however thick the foliage in which she is 

 concealed. After fertilization the female lays about 300 eggs in masses 

 which are firmly gummed on to the under surface of the leaves upon 

 which the caterpillars afterwards feed. The food plants are very numer- 

 ous ;in Almorah the caterpillar has been found upon a bush belonging to 

 the genus Berberis ; in the^hills about Mussoorie n^on Falconeria insignis 

 (Hutton) ; in Assam on Vangueria spinosa (Stack) ; in Sikkim upon 

 Teucrium macrostac/ii/um, a species which grows abundantly from an 

 elevation of 6,000 feet upwards (Otto Moller) ; in Bangalore upon a 

 species of Ocimum (Cameron) ; in Burma upon Ardisia sp., Clerodendron 

 infortunatum, Dillenia pentaffynia, Lagerstramia indica, Nauclea rotundi- 

 folia, Phyllanthus emhlica, and Schleichera trijuga (Manuel) ; while 

 Gosse succeeded in rearing it upon apple, and in Ceylon the form 



