1 54* Silkworms in India. [Vol. I. 



the pot, and with her left she turns the handle of the cylinder of wood, on which 

 the silk is reeled. Some practice is necpssary to attend to and carry out operations 

 with both hands, so as to produce a tolerably even and line thread, and good reelers 

 generally command good wages in their villages, so that it is difficult to get one to 

 leave her home. 



" As much silk having been obtained from the cocoons as it is possible, the pods are 

 then taken out of the pot, and, while still moist and warm, are stretched into a kind of 

 coarse knubby thread which finds a sale in the markets for coarse work. The 

 chrysalis, now divested entirely of its silken covering, is taken up by the children and 

 eaten either fried in oil or unfried. 



" The silk thus obtained is coarse and unfitted for export, though it answers very 

 well for the well-knowu fabrics tamaings, lungyis, pasos, worn by the Burmese." 



In bis L'art de la sole, volume II, page 483 (1887), Rondot writes of Bombyx 

 arracanensis, that five generations of the worm are reared in the year in Burma, no 

 rearing being done between the 16th January and the 22nd June. Tbe fibre is about 

 22 9 thousands of a millimetre in thickness, its tenacity being 6"56 grammes and its " 

 elasticity 17 per cent. 



BOMBYX TEXTOR. 1 



Boro polo or large pat. 



This is an annual mulbery silkworm, larger than either the Best or 

 Madrassi. It produces a considerable amount of good silk, and is occa- 

 sionally reared in Assam and Bengal; owing, however, to the fact that it 

 produces but one crop of cocoons in the year, and that its eggs do not 

 hatch simultaneously, its cultivation has now been generally abandoned. 

 Rondot, in his L'art de la sole, writes that this variety spins a white 

 cocoon smaller than that of Bombyx mori, and differing from it both in 

 form and structure, being generally pointed at each end, a little soft, the 

 silk not closely wound, and containing comparatively little gum. He 

 notes that in the early part of the century this variety was reared almost 

 everywhere in the Kasimbazar circle and other places in Bengal, and 

 that it has also been found in Ceylon. 



The following is an extract from Stack's report on silk in Assam? 

 dated February 1884 :— 



" The peculiarity of the bor polu, or large pat silkworm, is that the period of 

 hatching lasts teu months. To this circumstance it owes its name of lehemia or 



J Bombyx textor, Hutton, Trans. Ent. Soc. Loud. (3), ii, p. 309 (1864-6). 



,, „ „ Journ. Agri. Hort. Soc. Ind., iii, p. 125 (1871). 



„ „ Moore, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1867, p. 683. 



„ „ „ Wardle's Wild Silks in India, p. 2 (1881). 



„ ,, Louis, A few Words on Sericulture in Bengal, p. 20 (1880). 



„ ,, Stack, Silk in Assam, February (1884). 



„ „ Kondot, L'art de la soie, Vol. I, p. 320 (1885). 



„ „ Hunter, Gazetteer of India, Vol. Ill, p. 7 (1885). 



„ „ Mukharji, Report dated 6th January (1888). 



„ „ Cleghorn, Letter dated 9th March (1888). 



