No. 3. ] Silkworms in* India. loi 



slow. During this time the eggs are kept in a piece of cloth deposited tin a wicker 

 basket (jctpa), which is carefully placed out of the reach of rats and insects. The 

 cultivators look for the appearance of the young worms about the time of the festival 

 of the first day of Mdgh, — that is, towards the middle of January, when the mulberry 

 is putting forth green shoots. 



" The worms are fed at first on young mulberry leaves cut into pieces and shred 

 over them. They change their skin four times. After the second molting they are 

 able to feed on entire leaves. A hundred worms in this stage will eat about one seer 

 of leaves in a day. The tending of the worms usually devolves upon the women and 

 infirm members of the family. The life of the worm lasts thirty to forty days, of 

 which ten or twelve days elapse between the final molting and maturity. The 

 mature worms are removed to a basket divided into compartments, each allotted to 

 two or three worms. Here the cocoons are spun. 



"The cocoon is completed in about six days. Those selected for breeding are 

 placed on a sieve. The moths emerge in about a fortnight (the time is also stated as 

 ten to twenty days, according to the heat of the weather), and remain in pairs on the 

 sieve for three days, when the females are taken away and placed on a cloth suspended 

 in some quiet corner ' where they deposit their eggs, and die a day or two later. 



" About 7 per cent, of the cocoons are reserved for breeding. Their price for 

 this purpose runs as high as one rupee per hundred. 



" The cocoons intended for use are placed in the sun, to destroy the life of the 

 chrysalis. This having been effected, a score of cocoons are thrown into a pot of 

 scalding water, and stirred with a splinter of bamboo ; the fibres attach themselves to 

 the bamboo, and a thread is thus carried to the reel and reeled off. Sometimes the 

 bamboo fails to pick up the filaments, and a twig of the makudi creeper with the leaves 

 on has to be employed. 



" The cocoon is of a bright yellow colour, but the silk, when boiled in potash 

 water, becomes perfectly white. About 320 cocoons yield a tola of thread ; hence 

 25,000 to 30,000 will yield a seer. 



"From the breeding cocoons after the escape of the moth, and also from the 

 refuse of reeled cocoons, a coarser thread, called lat, is made by spinning. One 

 thousand such cocoons weigh about 4^ tolas, and yield a thread about one quarter as 

 valuable as the same weight of reeled yarn. 



" The pat silk is a much rarer and more valuable article than either eri or muga. 

 The thread sells for R16 to E24 per seer, and the cloth for E3 to R4 per square yard. 

 Like the mezanhuri variety of muga, the pat silk is rather an article of luxury than 

 of ordinary trade. If a piece is wanted, it usually has to be made to order. Nothing 

 like a market ior pat thread or cloth can be said to exist. The breeding of the worms 

 is restricted by custom to the Jugi caste, who used to supply the requirements of the 

 Ahom kings and their courts, and the industry is hardly known out of the district of 

 Sibsagar, the ancient centre of Ahom rule. The Jugis still make a profound mystery 

 of the business, refusing to let a stranger see the worms, and answering enquiries in 

 a manner calculated to mislead. They say, for instance, that the worm takes nine 

 months to spin its cocoon. There can be little doubt that the production of pat silk 

 has greatly declined since the annexation of Assam, nor is there any prospect of its 



1 In his account of the Birbhum District, Hunter notices (Gazetteer, Volume III, 

 page 7, 1885) that the eggs are preserved in earthen pots closed with a plaster of cowdung- 

 and earth from March, when they are laid, until the following January or Februa y, wheu 

 they hatch. 



