THE TECHNOLOGIST. [Dec. 1, 1864. 



226 ON THE REVERSION AXD RESTORATION, ETC. 



time, and that time is generally from ten to twelve hours, and often 

 more." 



Yet, notwithstanding the truth of this remark, it has become the 

 custom, after Count Dando]o, whose opinions are not always to he 

 depended on, to separate the sexes at the end of five or six hours, and the 

 unavoidable consequence is, that while half the eggs remain altogether 

 unimpregnated and wasted, the other half will produce weakly and 

 sickly worms. It naturally folloAvs then, from this unnecessary inter- 

 ference with Nature's mysteries, that the Avorms produced are pre-dis- 

 posed to disease, and as this goes on year after year, and has done so for 

 centuries past, of course the worm becomes more and more degenerated 

 and debilitated. 



Surely even here a useful lesson may be learned from the proceedings 

 of the wild species, since every one who has tied out the females of any 

 of the larger Bombycidce, such as Antherozd or Attacus, must have 

 observed that the wild male found coupled with the female in the 

 morning, will, if unmolested, remain so until sunset, when a voluntary 

 separation takes place. 



That matters, as regards the silkworm, are in a very critical and 

 unsatisfactory condition, is fully acknowledged by the French culti- 

 vators, but I very much doubt if they have adopted the best means of 

 checking the various maladies with which the insect is beset. Quacks, 

 doubtless, will be found in numbers ever ready to extol some secret nos- 

 trum, but the remedies hitherto applied to cure particular phases of 

 disease are calculated to exercise but a temporary effect, and do not by 

 any means strike boldly home and remove the causes from which the 

 maladies arise ; hence in 1861, it was feared that the yield of silk 

 throughout all France would scarcely rise to one-half the return given 

 in previous years. Perfectly useless is it to seek in foreign lands for a 

 healthier and more vigorous seed, since the loss of constitution is uni- 

 versal, and I confidently aver that nothing short of the re-discovery of 

 the insect in its original state of nature, or of the complete restoration 

 of the constitution of the domesticated stock by causing the worm to 

 revert to its pristine colour and characteristics, will ever be able to avert 

 the doom which now appears to be impending over the whole domestic 

 stock of Bomhyces. 



The mode of doing this is as simple as could be wished. Nature, 

 ever watchful over the welfare of her productions, herself points out the 

 course to be pursued, and invites us to profit by her wise suggestions, 

 when she gives us so broad a hint of the true state of affairs as to place 

 before us in almost e\-ery brood of domesticated worms a few dark indi- 

 viduals, as if for the express purpose of attracting and fixing the natu- 

 ralist's attention and compelling him to adopt a method of perpetuating 

 that dark race. Let the seiiculturist separate these from his general 

 stock, and set them apart for breeding from ; let him annually weed 

 them of all pale-coloured worms, and in the course of three or four 



