THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [December I, 1888. 
the benefit of our scientific knowledge and improved 
skill in what was once her exclusive domain. I have 
no means of knowing the general result of the above 
enquiries. But for this province (Manchuria) the 
results have been most gratifying, and promise to be 
of immediate benefit to commerce. In my own collec- 
tion, not to speak of new varieties of wild silkworms, 
there were two new varieties of the oak-feeding worm 
commonly known as Antheraa Pernyii, one of which 
has now been named Antheraa ffartii, in honour of 
one whose name is supreme as a benefactor of China. 
The hunt being above all things for new species, I 
had live cocoons collected over a considerable area, 
and where practicable had the worms brought to me 
when about to spin'. I had not a hundered cocoons 
in all, and none of my specimens represented the far 
east nor the north-east of the province, to which 
resort is often had for fresh seed when disease invades 
us. Yet from this small collection it was made 
manifest that the Ohiuese are ignorantly cultivating 
three varieties higgledy-piggledy, in utter ignorance 
on the part of many that these differ widely in the 
quality of the cocoons. When the black-brown moth, 
now named Anthercea Hartii, startled me by its novel 
appearance, I sent for a grower, who answered my 
query, " Is this not an unusual colour ? " by the care- 
less reply, that several of these were sure to appear 
annually in his son's oak-patch, but that they make 
nothing of them. To test the statement I sent him 
to bring me some, and in three days he returned, 
not indeed with the five pairs demanded by the 
Customs, but yet with five males and two females. 
He was a little late, he said, or he might possibly 
have picked up more, but no one there had noticed 
particularly the difference among the moths. This 
was in a small Tls. 10 venture. When I got what 
seemed a new variety I used to pin it on the wall, 
and bring in my friend for his opinion. He had seea 
them all before, and always in the same stock. And 
in spite of certain peculiarities of the Chinese mind 
well known to us long residents, I am satisfied the 
man was right. In making further enquiries this year 
in regard to the other new variety, a very fine yellow 
moth, I have, however, found a fana where some 
twenty thousand worms are kept strictly apart, worms 
of a bright burnished yellow colour, althogether dis- 
tinct from the ordinary green worm, and these are 
thus kept by themselves because the grower is aware 
they produce a much finer silk. I was unfotunate 
enough t' i lose the moth season this year — the season 
of eclorion — in consequence of the unusual rains. 
But there is no doubt these are the worms of the 
yellow moth. There is every reason, then, to believe 
that the province is rich in varieties, and that the 
Chinese, true to themselves are jogging among in 
ignorant courses. Even when an individual hits on 
knowledge, he keeps it to himself, lest by commu- 
nicating it he should enrich others. All honour to 
the customs, therefore, for this move. It is to be 
hoped we are only at the beginning of a great 
movement by which foreigners will repay China for 
the long centuries of benefit we have received at 
her hands. 
Worms are not generally supposed to be an interest- 
ing topic, yet in a silk district it is not an offence 
to speak of them even at meals. And really one 
begins to lose one's natural horror of the caterpillar 
tribe when one has had even a slight acquaintance with 
the gentle family of silkworms. I was once initiated 
by an old enthusiast into the mysteries of bee keep- 
ing, and advanced far enough to know how it takes 
the form of a craze in many, when one's bees know 
one, and can be handled summer or winter and re- 
cognize the fingers at the feeding slide, even when one 
does give it an unfortunate jerk on a cold day and 
brings the nimble sentry upon one's finger nails: — 
.1, woniia are not bees. They are like friends with 
fishy fingers, which make one cold at the touch. 
It takes now time really to get into the state of 
craze. Yet, after all, it is imagination. I remember 
in one of my visits to the Far East my attention 
wat arretted by a party of very swell young Ohinn- 
inen, who were loitering about with great fat greon 
caterpillars crawling on their silk sleeves. They 
seemed to despise me that I did not show appreci- 
ation of their fancy. I saw only great, fat, ugly 
slugs, which I had not the courage to touch, and 
which if pub on my sleeve would have made me 
creep. Now I wish to describe this slug — for it was 
none other than the oak-silkworm when about to spin ; 
and to give an account of some three or more vari- 
eties I have met with, in the hope readers will be 
willing to make its acquaintance, and in fact ( where 
they have opportunity) to push its fortunes in the 
world. One would not think there was much romance 
in the life of a worm. But look at this worm's 
enemies. When it is but a tiny little black mite, 
and indeed to the close of its second stage, it is a 
tit-bit for the ubiquitous sparrow. It then passes 
into the hand of the magpie and the crow — the for- 
mer more especially being a cruel Pharaoh, and 
quite equal to the extermination of a stock. When 
the worm is just ready to spin, has no further ex- 
crement, and is pack-full of the essence of silk, a 
pair of four-footed persecutors appear — shall I be 
believed when I say it ? — the fox and the badger. 
But where is scepticism when I say the Chinese 
themselves feed on them at this stage, and deem 
them a delicacy. Here are foes enough. But we are 
not nearly finished. The big formidable wasps of these 
parts prick them and suck the juice. So does another 
enemy which I cannot name in English — the Pi Pa 
Tsan — and which is even more dreaded than the wasp. 
The elephant ant worries them always, even to the 
spinning stage. I have seen an ant attack the head 
of a four-inch sleeping beauty when resting after a 
feed — resting with body in mid-air and help only by 
the tail and feet-prehensiles. The spider is also an abid- 
ing plague, blocking the way of the worms as they 
move from twig to twig — and of course making a meal 
of the younger ones. And as the spider traps them 
on the tree, so froggie gapes for them when they fall 
on the ground. Once on the ground, alas ! their ene- 
mies are legion, and escape is rare. Is it a mere Chi- 
naman's legend that our children's friend, the fairy 
little "lady-bird," is also an enemy? It is said to be 
blown from the land rocks in locust-like clouds, and 
to settle upon the oak scrub to the injury of the 
silkworms. But would naturalists believe it sucks 
their juice ? Even on poetic grounds one would fain 
hold it a libel. Yet the culprit brought me seemed 
indisputably a " lady-bird. " There are also enemies 
which interfere with the food of the poor creature. 
The chief of these is a caterpillar, supposed to belong 
to the Zesio-campidee family, wbich I have seen des- 
troy an entire oak plantation — a whole valley so that 
not a leaf was left. Even where present in moder- 
ation this is a trying plague, as the silkworm won't 
touch a leaf which its enemy has tasted. Then comes 
a round of fell diseases which seizes the worm in 
its later stages, and which often in the very last 
stage robs the grower of his hope. One is the yellow 
disorder in which the worm assumes a sickly yellow 
colour. Another is the yellow spots, which show in 
yellow spots like blisters. A third is the black rust, 
showing in minute black spots like pin points, some- 
times dotted over the whole body, sometimes more 
sparsely along the sides. A fourth is the black spots 
or bars, showing in larger spots than in the above 
and in streaks. The last may be described as 
diarrhoea, known by the excrement clinging to the 
worm and not falling free. Worms in the power 
of any of these diseases are considered doomed, and 
in some seasons a whole stock will suffer. It is hard 
to say which is more dreaded where nothing is to 
be hoped from any. But perhaps the black rust is 
more common in our parts, and as it is a plague 
of water or damp is most dreaded in autumn, after 
the summer rains. But when all these are passed, 
there remains in our latitudes the plague of the north 
wind, an exasperating one in this, that it frequently 
arrests the healthy worms within a day or two of 
spinning, and leaves them as it were spiked on the 
tree in a comatose condition, when time is precious 
and a few days loss means simple. doom. As early 
as the 27th September this year I saw whole bushes, 
