THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [June 2, 1890, 
802 
the pamphlet there is quoted from Riley's Manual 
of bilk Oulture in the United States a most 
elaborate account of the cultivation of the Bombyx 
inori and of all the processes in production of 
eilk. Those inolined to try experiments ought, 
therefore, to become possessors of this well illus- 
trated pamphlet ; Bombyx textor is only one of the 
worms said to be found in Ceylon. Passing over 
this and several other worms whioh feed on mul- 
berry leaves* we come to the worm whioh produces 
the tusser Bilk, dnthereea mylitta. Of this worm it 
iB stated : — 
This insect, whioh is very variable in appearanoe and 
has been desoribed under a number of synonyms,* feeds 
on many different plants,! and is found in a wild state 
in jungle land up to four or five thousand feet eleva- 
tion! over India : a closely allied or identical form 
is also found in Oeylon.§ The cocoons always com- 
mand a price in the market, and are accordingly col- 
lected by jungle tribes wherever sufficient quantities 
can be found to be wortb carriage, while the insect is 
regularly cultivated onj.the Central Indian plateau for 
the production of silk. The moths emerge from their 
cocoons in the beginning of the rains (June), copulate 
and lay eggs ; from these eggs emerge oaterpillars 
whioh beoome full-fed and spin cocoons which produce 
moths about August; these moths lay eggs which pro- 
duce the worms of the second generation, and these 
worms spin at the end of the rains (September yield- 
ing the cocoons which in their natural state remain on 
the trees throughout the winter and produce moths in 
the commencement of the following rains (June.) 
The cocoons, which are eaoh attaohed to the food- 
plant by a silken stem of singular strength and neat- 
ness, are hard and compact in struoture, and contain a 
large amount of coarse, strong, buff -coloured silk, in- 
ferior in brilliancy only to the silk of the Muya worm 
(Antheraa assama.) The coooons can be reeled, but 
have first to be sbujected to the action of some power- 
ful solvent (e. g., caustio potash) to separate the 
threadB.|| 
* TuaBei=Anthercea mylitta (Hiibn. Walker, Moore 
Aurivilius, Wardle, Bondot, &c.)= Phalana (Attacus) 
mylitta (Drury) «= Attacus mylitta (Bl&nch)= Bombyx 
mylitta (Fabr. and Oliv.) — Phalcena paphia (Cramer 
and Roxbntg)= Antheraa Paphia (Moore and Beavan)= 
Saturnia mylitta (Westw.) = Saturnia paphia (Heifer.) 
For details of the synonymy, see Catalogue of the Moths 
of India (Cotes and Swinhoe), p. 228, Calcutta, 1889. 
besides the above, which have long been admitted as 
identical, Hutton described A ntheraa nebulosa as a dis- 
tinct form from Chota Nagpur and Central India ; 
Hutton's type specimen is in the Indian Museum, and 
is obviously only a dark-coloured individual of the com- 
mon tusser. 
t Besides the trees — Shorea robusta (sal) and Termi- 
nalia tomentosa (saj) — on whioh the tusser is usually 
reared, Wardle, in his Wild Silks of India, notices that 
the following are food-plants : Bhizophora calceolaris, 
Terminalia alata glabra, Terminalia catappa, Tectona 
grandis, Zizyphus jujuba, Bombax heptaphyllum, Careya 
spharica, Pentaptera tomentosa, Pentaptera glabra, JRiei- 
nus communis, Cassia lanceolota, Lagerstrumia indica, 
Carissa carandas, Terminalia arjuna, and Ficus benja- 
tninia ; while Cameron in his report for 1887-88 states 
that in Bangalore tusser has been found to feed on 
Bodoncea viscosa, Webefa corymbosa, Shorea tdlura, Ter- 
minalia arjuna, Anoyeissus latifolia, Cipadessa fructuosa, 
and Canthium didynum. 
% The late Otto M oiler noticed that he had never met 
with the species in Darjiling (7,000 feet), though it is 
common at the foot of the Darjiling hills. 
§ Described by Moore, in his Bepidoptera of Ceylon, 
London, 1882-83, under the name of Anthevoea cingalesa. 
|| One of the greatest difficulties in reeliog tusser 
silk, after the oocoons have once been softened, is to 
make the separate strands cohere in the reeled thread; 
this difficulty does not occur in the case of mulberry 
silk where, unlike the tusser, the cement is only softened 
in the reeliDg basin, so that on again hardening it serves 
to glue the itrands together, 
Both the cement with which the caterpillar hardens 
the walls of its silken cocoon and also the fluid with 
which the moth afterwards softens tbis cement, prior 
to workiDg its way out by the help r f its wing spines, 
appears to be secreted in the alimentary tract and to 
be of excrementitious origin. 
In Chota Nagpur the worms are wared on Shorea 
robusta (sal, or sakoona), and Tevrninalia tomentosa 
(sag, assun asain. or en) ; cocoons are also found on 
Zizyhus jajuba. In the Central Provinces they are 
ohiefly reared on Terminalia tomentosa. 
In his report on Silk in Assam (February 1884; 
Stack writes : — 
" The wild silkworm called kutkuri is believed to 
be the same as the common tusser of Bengal. Its 
food is principally the kutkuri (T'angueria spinosa) 
from which it takes its Dame, or elf-e l he plant called 
(erroneously) the wild Rhododendron (Melastoma mala- 
baricum), the Assamese name of which is phutuka. 
It has been cultivated in the palmy days of the Assam 
silk industry, but it is now almost entirely negleoted 
as being inferior to muya, and, a)6o, perhaps, because 
it yields only three* t broods in the year. Its habits 
are now known only to a few old people in Jorhat. 
Mr. Buckingham, to whom I am indebted for most 
of my information about this worm, says that the 
kutkuri is common in the wild state in the neighbour- 
hood of Jorhat. It is also common in Cachar, but 
there also no use is made of it. Some worms reared 
in June and July took rather more than a month 
from the laying of the egg, to the spinning of the 
cocoon. 
M The worms were fed on the phutuka. Worms put 
outside while very youDg were speedily devoured by 
ants, but if kept indoors till the second molting, they 
were then found to do very well on the bushes. Mr. 
Buckingham adds : — ' I reared ten worms in this way, 
and all exoept oae made their cocoons between the 
leaves of the shrub, odo solitary worm descending 
and making its cocoon in the grass. The native had 
previously informed me that this wild species of 
worm was less liable to the attacks of crows, bats, &o. 
than tame species were, and it was curious to watch 
how the worm, at the slightest show of danger, let 
go the leaf or stem with all its front legs, hanging 
on by its holders behind, and in this position, with 
its head slightly curled round and its front legs well 
tucked up, it took an experienced eye to detect the 
difference between the leaf of the tree and the worm.' " 
'The wild silkworm called Salthi is also a species 
of tusser. It is called Beomuya by the Kacharis, but 
must not be confounded with the Beomuya proper 
which is described below, and which is a Bombyx. 
The Salthi worm feeds on the Kamranga (Barring- 
tonia racemosa) and the Hidal. 
Tusser cocoons are met with extensively, in a wild 
state, throughout the submontane districts of the 
Punjab, chiefly on Zizyphus jujuba (the ber tree). 
It does not appear, however, that the insect has ever 
been reared otberwise than experimentally for the 
production of silk. 
We next notice " Eri," or Attacus ricini : — 
This is a multivoltine silkworm which is fed on the 
leaves sf the castor-oil paint and reared entirely in- 
doors in Assam, much in the way that the mulberry 
worm is reared in Bengal. It is cultivated throughout 
the whole of Assam, particularly in the submontane 
distriots, the industry being mostly in the hands of 
non-Hindu tribes of low caste. 
A most complete aocount of the inseot has been 
given by Stack in his report, dated February 1884, on 
silk in Assam. The following therefrom is quoted 
verbatim from his report, foot-notes only being added 
in cases where further information has been obtained :— 
" The eri worm (Attacus ricini) derives both its 
scientific and its vulgar name from its attachment to 
the castor-oil plant (Ricinus communis), called eri in 
Assamese. It feeds also on the keseru (BTeteropanax 
fragrans) and there are several other trees, as the yulan- 
cha (Jatropha curcas), the gomari (Gmelina arborea) and 
even it is said the common boyri or ber tree (Zizyphus 
* In Central India tusser yield but two, 
