306 
The Microscope in 
["Monthly Microscopical 
L Journal, May 1, 1869. 
The cultivation of the three batches proceeded excellently, as 
on the estate of Inverigo, where the Marquis raised 210 ounces 
of eggs, of which no more than two per cent, were diseased. 
From these 210 ounces he obtained 10,176 kilogrammes of cocoons, 
a mean of 48 kilos, to the ounce. The three batches of eggs from 
Zara did still better ; for they produced a maximum of cocoons 
equal to 62 kilos, per ounce. 
As may be imagined, the Marquis set apart for the next year 
the eggs from the last-mentioned quahty, and he set to work with 
ardour, and with great hopes of excellent results. But ail his 
exertions were not followed by equal success. 
The examination of the chrysalides responded exactly to what 
might have been predicted ; that is to say, that all three batches 
were equally healthy. The microscopic examination of the moths, 
however, gave quite a different result. Those which had been 
reared in the village and those in the Marquis's garden were 
diseased ; but those which had been sent to a distance and which 
were brought up in the isolated house were perfectly healthy. Not 
one of these last presented any corpuscles, neither in leaving the 
cocoon nor in depositing ova, nor in decay, nor after death. 
Here there is a decisive result ; for the eggs were the same and 
the education of the three batches was alike, save in certain circum- 
stances, on which it is important to insist. All had the same 
abundance of air, all were equally chambrees, all had excellent food. 
The pecuhar circumstances relate only to the conditions of con- 
tagion — to the transport of corpuscles. In fact, the healthy moths 
were those which had been reared under circumstances of isolation, 
in places previously disinfected, and where the worms had been fed 
with leaves equally isolated. 
Here there is what is essential to obtain certain results. To the^. 
ordinary precautions of " education," conducted v^dth all possible atten- 
tion as to temperature, aeration, and abundance of food, it is necessary 
to add isolation of the chambers by a cordon of at least 500 metres 
radius, and healthy eggs, deposited by healthy moths, cultivated with 
particular care in isolated localities, disinfected with chlorine, and 
having a certain " precocity," * in order to obtain isolation. 
The experiment has not been made on a very small scale ; for 
M. Crivelli has been able to obtain 480 ounces of these perfect 
eggs ; and it was in this harvest that he obtained the maximum of 
62 kilos, of cocoons to the ounce. 
M. Bellotti, to whom I had given the other portion of the 
healthy eggs, and who raised them at Yarese with his usual skill 
* The object of "precocity " is to avoid the contemporaneity of exceptional and 
ordinary broods ; to prevent the worms for the production of eggs being a la bruyere 
at the time when the ordinary broods are in their last moult — the period of the 
greatest development of corpuscles. 
