38 On the indigenous Silkworms of India. [Jan. 



imported from Rungpur; it appears to be more cottony than the tussur, 

 and to make a web warmer and softer than the tussur cloth, but it is 

 not so strong. 



The cocoons called haumpottonee are unknown to us in Bengal, and 

 appear to be of small value both as to quantity and texture : moreover 

 I imagine it would be very difficult to reel them into thread. 



The deo mooga cocoons are very small but are fine and soft, and 

 when fresh would yield, 1 doubt not, a very delicate white thread : they 

 are smaller than our desee (country) cocoon. 



The specimen of country worm silk is very fair, and if dressed 

 would be quite equal to our Patna thread, from which korahs and 

 other silk piece goods are made. 



The specimen of iron reel (or station method) is very good, indeed, 

 equal to our best native filature letter A : the thread is even, soft, sound 

 and remarkably strong, so that it may be well ranked with our best 

 second quality from the filatures of Bengal. 



IV. — On the indigenous Silkworms of India. By T. W. Hblfer, 

 M . D. Member of the Medical Faculties at the Universities in Prague 

 and Pavia, Member of the Entom. Society in Paris, 8(C. 



[Read at the Meeting of the 4th December.] 



Silk was in all times an article of the greatest importance throughout 

 the ancient world. 



China gained its celebrity in the classical time of the ancients, as 

 the mother-country of that mysterious texture, which it manufactured 

 from time immemorial, with a high degree of perfection, and called 

 se or ser ; whence all India and its eastern unknown boundaries 

 derived the name Serira. 



It made the satraps of the western world, the rulers of Rome and 

 the emperors of Byzant, envious of its possession, and the home 

 brought golden fleece of the fabulous Argonautes, was perhaps 

 nothing else than the precious web of the Bombykia. 



The emperor Justinianus got an insight into the secret by two 

 adventurous Persian monks, who brought the eggs of the Chinese 

 silkworm in a hollow bamboo cane, safe over the icy chains of the 

 Himalaya, the barren plains of Bokhara, and the ruggy mountains 

 of Persia, to the distant eastern capital. He considered it a point of 

 great importance to reserve to himself the monopoly of such a pre- 

 cious article, though master of the riches of his vast empire. 



