144 JOURNAL R. A. S. CEYLON. [Vol. VII., Pt. II. 



which will he found full of interesting information on this 

 subject : — 



Parate, Moratuwa, 

 September 29th, 1881. 



Dear Sir, — With reference to your request for specimens of the 

 Mylitta silk moth, I regret that I have no moths at present, but only- 

 some larvae of Mylitta and Atlas, which I am rearing for Mr. Alfred 

 Wailly, of London. There must be specimens at the Museum. 



There seem to be several varieties of the Mylitta. According to 

 Major Coussmaker, the Himalayan variety is univoltine (single- 

 brooded) and the larvae casts the skin five times, and attains a length 

 of seven inches when full grown. There are smaller varieties in 

 other parts of India, and in the kind found here the larvae moults 

 four times and is about five inches long. In India the Mylitta feeds 

 on the Terminated tomentosa, Zizypus jujuba, Lagerstrcema indica, 

 Ficus benjamina, Carissa, Guidia, and other trees, I do not know 

 if any of these grow here. In this country the Mylitta is to be 

 found on the kaju, kahata, milila, veralu, and some other trees ; and 

 the Ceylonese variety of the insect is polyvoltine, producing four or 

 five generations in a year. Sir Emerson Tennent says, in his Natural 

 History, that the Mylitta feeds on the leaves of the castor oil tree, 

 but he has confounded it with the Attacus ricini or Arinda silk 

 worm, which is quite a different species and does not, so far as I 

 know, exist in Ceylon. 



The word tussur — variously written "tasar," "tusseh," "tussah," 

 and several other ways — is derived from tussurie, Hindustani for a 

 shuttle.* In England they call all sorts of wild silk-worms by the 

 general name of "tussurs," but the name properly belongs to the 

 species known scientifically — or rather empirically, for such names 

 have been multiplied until they have become worse than useless — by 

 the various names of Saturnia paphia, Anthercea paphia, Anthercea 

 Mylitta and Attacus Mylitta. 



The Mylitta silk-worm cannot be fed on plucked leaves like the 

 mulberry .and castor oil species, but must be kept either on growing 



* S. CDcod [tasara], u shuttle." 



