395 

 ON THE CULTIVATION OF SILK IN TASMANIA. 



BY THE REV. T. J. EWING AND MB. STUTZEB. 



At the monthly meeting of the Royal Society of Tasmania, held at 

 Hobart Town, on the 4th November, 1862, Mr. Ewing laid before the 

 meeting elaborately executed drawings from his work on Natural His- 

 tory, of most of the silk-spinning moths of the world, and read the fol- 

 lowing observations in reference to them. Although most of the infor- 

 mation is a duplication of the details given by Mr. Moore in our pages, 

 vol. 2, p. 410, we give it entire, as showing the interest taken in the sub- 

 ject at the Antipodes. 



Attacus Cynthia (Drury). — First described by Drury in 1773. It was 

 sent from China to Turin by Father Fantoni in 1857, and was intro- 

 duced into France by Guerin Meneville in 1858. It was figured by 

 Danberton, jun., in his coloured plates, which were published between 

 1760 and 1765. It was raised for some centuries in China, where its 

 silk clothes the people. The colour of the silk is a fine flax -grey ; and 

 the clothes made of it are not injured by rain or oil. The caterpillar of 

 the silk-worm feeds on the leaves of the Ailanthus glandulosa. It has 

 been shown to live as well in Europe as in its native country. More 

 than two thousand amateurs are engaged in efforts to rear this worm ; 

 these experiments have not all resulted satisfactorily, the insect-eating 

 birds having in some places made a war of extermination. Nevertheless, 

 the degree of success is so great that, according to Guerin Meneville, it 

 is now practicable to carry on experiments on a large scale. 



The principal obstacle connected with the manufacture, arises from 

 the difficulty of separating (reeling) the silk from the cocoons. This 

 difficulty has at length been overcome by two different methods, one of 

 which was discovered by Madame Yernede, of Corneillan, the other by 

 Dr. Forgend. 



; ' Attacus Pacini (Sir W. Jones). — First described by Boisduval, in 1854, 

 and long confounded with the true Cynthia of Drury. It is the arrindy, 

 arria, or eria silkworm, and is reared over a great part of Hindostan, 

 but more especially in the districts of Dinajpur and Ranjpur, in houses 

 in a domesticated state, and feeds chiefly on the leaves of Ricinus com- 

 munis. The silk of this species has hitherto never been wound off, but 

 people spun it like cotton. It is so productive as to give sometimes 

 twelve broods of spun silk in the year, says the late Dr. Heifer, (T.A.S., 

 Bengal, p. 45, 1857). 



Dr. Roxburgh states, (Linn. Trans., vol. 7) that it is capable of being 

 reared in the same way as the common silkworm. The cocoons are 

 white or yellowish, of a very soft and delicate texture, in general about 

 two or three inches in length, and three in circumference, and pointed 

 at both ends. In this cocoon the chrysalis remains from ten to twenty 

 days, the moth appearing at one end, the period of its final state not ex- 



