17*2 Silkworms in India. [ Vol. I. 



Being carried to the house, the worms are then placed on a bundle of branches with 

 the dry leaves attached, or in a basket with a bundle of leaves suspended over it, into 

 which the worms crawl. A complete cycle of the insect last about 54 days in the 

 warm months, and 81 days in the cold season. 



" The muga cocoon is in size about If inch long by 1 inch in diameter. In colour it 

 is a golden yellow ; but there are usuallj r a number of dark cocoons in every brood, for 

 which no satisfactory reason can be assigned. The difference does not seem to be due 

 to any of the conditions of food or breeding. A large proportion of the dark cocoons 

 which come into the market, however, are no doubt to be accounted for by discolora- 

 tion in the process of firing. Boiling in alkali water is the method employed to restore 

 cocoons to their proper colour. With the living chrysalis inside, the cocoon weighs about 

 66 grains, with the dead and dried chrysalis 27| grains, and the empty cocoon from 

 which the moth has made its escape weighs 6 grains only. The ordinary selling rate for 

 cocoons with the dessicated chrysalis is R2 the thousand, but they can often be bought 

 in the villages for 700 or 800 the rupee. The waste or perforated cocoons from which 

 the moth has escaped can be had for about R2 the seer, containing nearly 3,000 cocoons. 

 Tbere is, however, no regular market for cocoons, and persons wishing to procure a 

 stock visit the villages where the worms are bred, and make their own bargain with 

 the cultivators, and waste muga cocoons do not seem to be easily procurable by any 

 artifice. 



" The silk of the mvga is reeled. The life of the chrysalis having been destroyed by 

 exposure to the sun, or by fire, the cocoons are boiled in an alkaline solution. When 

 required for use, their floss is plucked off, and they are placed in a pot of warm or cold 

 water. Two persons are employed, one to take the silk from the cocoons, the other to 

 reel it. The former brings together the filaments of silk from a number of cocoons, 

 varying from 7 to 20, and hands them to the reeler, who rubs them into a thread by 

 rolling them on his thigh with the palm of his right hand and the under part of the 

 fore-arm (which usually suffers more or less from the operation), while with his left 

 hand he turns the fly-wheel of the primitive reeling apparatus that stands beside him, 

 an axle turning in the notches of two uprights, with the aforesaid wheel at one end, 

 or often merely a cross-stick in the middle to serve 'the purpose of a fly-wheel. In this 

 way the whole of the cocoon can be unwound, except the innermost layer next to the 

 chrysalis. The thread is reeled off on the axle, in skeins of about half a seer at a 

 time. The quantity of silk yielded by the cocoons varies according to the brood. The 

 cold-weather brood gives the least, and is usually reserved for breeding, only the in- 

 ferior cocoons being spun. The Tcatia and jetliua broods yield the most silk. A 

 thousand cocoons of thejarua brood will yield about two chittacks of thread, and of the 

 Icatia oxjethua brood three or four chittacks. 



"Opinions differ as to whether old cocoons can or cannot be reeled. The cultivator 

 does not usually keep his cocoons so long as a year, unless he is accumulating a stock 

 very slowly. But it would seem that reeling is practicable up to two years at least, 

 and that, if carefully kept, cocoons of even four or five years old can be reeled, and will 

 give silk in no respect inferior to that yielded by fresh cocoons. This experiment, 

 however, is one which is not often made. 



"No part of the muga cocoon is rejected as useless ; the flosf* plucked off before 

 reeling, the silk of the shell immediately surrounding the chrysalis, and the cocoons 

 kept for breeding, after the moth has forced its way through them, though unfit for 

 reeling, are spun by the hand into a coarser kind of thread, called ' waste ' or era , 

 which is used for mixing with eri thread, or is woven by itself into rough but warm 

 and durable fabrics. 



"The price of mvga thread varies according to quality, from R8 to R12 per 



