122 THE TUSSEH SILKWORM MOTH. 
or perhaps one, two, or three days, a flight of males 
arrive, settle on the branches, and impregnate the 
females ; by the bye, the hill people calculate good 
or ill fortune in proportion to the speedy or tardy 
arrival of the stranger males. These insects die as 
soon as the purposes of nature are effected, and the 
females live only to produce the eggs on the branches 
of the trees, and then expire. In regard to the 
Bughy species, they all take flight, females as well 
as males, and hence the natives firmly believe that 
they are all males, though I cannot see any physical 
reason for supposing them so. I have frequently 
endeavoured to detain the males of the Jarroo spe- 
cies, and have kept them locked up in a box for 
that purpose ; but whether they did not like to 
make free with their female relations, or from what 
other cause I know not, but I could never obtain a 
breed in the domestic state, and the efforts of the 
male to escape were wonderful, and at last always 
effectual. The accounts given by the natives of 
the distance to which the male insects fly are very 
astonishing. I have put, at different times and 
occasions, innumerable questions to them on this 
subject, and they assure me that it is no uncommon 
practice amongst them to catch some of the male 
moths, and put a mark on their wings previous to 
letting them fly, the marks of different districts be- 
ing known. Iam told that it has been thus ascer- 
tained that male moths haye come from a distance 
