86 
THE TUSSEH SILKWORM OF INDIA. 
[Nature and Art, August 1, I860. 
manufacturers, and countless trees were reared and 
planted out to supply food for the ravenous broods 
of worms. 
How the silkworm-pest, “ Gettein,” appeared, 
and swept, like a blight, over the lands of the poor 
silk-cultivators is too well known to need com- 
ment ; and it appears probable that both the 
Ailanthus, and still more hardy Oak worm (. Bombyx 
Yama-mai), will ere long spin their webs for the 
“ public weal,” both in England and France. 
India has, from time immemorial, been a silk- 
producing country ; and there is no doubt that, 
from the very earliest ages, much attention has 
been directed to silkworm management. 
The ordinary Chinese or mulberry worm, has 
been long known and extensively reared in many 
districts. But it is our intention now to deal 
more particularly with the native Indian silk- 
worm, his woiks and mode of life. It is by the 
natives called “ Bughey and the dead leaf or 
brown-coloured silk which it spins, is known 
throughout the length and breadth of India as 
“ Tusseh.” This becoming and exceedingly durable 
silk is rapidly gaining favour amongst the fair 
members of English society ; and Regent Street, 
that great emporium of fashionable merchandise, 
possesses, in common with the bazaar of the 
Eastern world, its piles of rich brown Tusseh, piled 
bale on bale, as a lure to those who heedlessly trust 
themselves within the magnetic circle of the shops. 
By the inhabitants of India, silk of this descrip- 
tion is in almost universal use ; and so durable is 
it, that years of wear are scarcely sufficient to 
destroy its tough texture. But to all those who 
possess garments of this, or any other Indian silk, 
a word of caution may not come amiss. Never 
subject them to the action of hot water, or their 
strength and durability soon pass from them, and 
they rapidly become deteriorated and fragile. 
The “ Tusseh ” worm is found in Bahar, Assam, 
and Bengal ; being very abundant in the neigh- 
bourhood of the Beerbhoom Hills, in the latter 
country. In this and other portions of the 
presidency, it has been for ages so abundant and 
unfailing in its supply of raw silk, that the native 
population are enabled to avail themselves exten- 
sively of it for a number of useful purposes. Its 
food, the leaves of the Ehamnus Jujuba, — “byer,” 
“ beer,” or “ bear ” berry of the Hindoos, — is found 
growing wild in every forest and jungle. The 
Terminalia, Alata, Glabra, or “ Asseen,” is also 
eaten freely ; so that scarcity of food is a contin- 
gency rarely to be feared. And wherever life-giving 
water can be made to flow, or where, deep beneath 
the cable-like roots and spreading branches of some 
huge banyan, the cool well lies hid, there will the 
water-loving Hindoo erect his hut, and pass his 
simple life, cutting and pruning the trees in the 
neighbourhood of his own home, until the season 
shall arrive for the young worms to appear amongst 
the leaves of the forest. For, be it known that 
our “ Tusseh ” friend is a veritable vagabond in both 
his youth and old age, resolutely objecting to be 
domesticated, and absolutely refusing to rear a 
family within the pale of civilization. So our dusky 
worm-hunters betake themselves at early dawn to 
the byer-berry and asseen thickets, and there, with 
keen searching eye, examine the fallen leaves, flat 
stones, or pieces of bark, in order to discover the 
gunpowder-like traces of the young insects, which 
may chance to be luxuriating amongst the rich 
green canopy above. The tell-tale signs once 
discovered, our prying investigator places the soles 
of his feet against the trunk, and, with a small 
sharp hatchet in his waist-cloth, walks up the tree 
in a manner that even Leotard himself would find 
hard to accomplish. The perforated leaves and 
busy worms, as with sharp nippers and swaying 
heads they mow their way amongst the young 
foliage, are now brought under observation. A 
few steady, well-directed cuts, serve to detach the 
branch from the parent trunk ; and the whole 
family of vagrant young worms, branch and all, 
are passed carefully to the ground. These, with 
others procured in like manner, are then carried, 
! with much ceremony, many curious religious 
rites, and an inordinate quantity of tom-tom 
beating, to their future home, near the hut of 
their captor, who at once places them on the leaves 
of the asseen-tree to feed. From this time, war of 
the most determined character is declared against 
all marauding crows and piratical “ mina-birds.” * 
Pellet-bows, stones, and slings, accompanied by 
noises of the most wild and fiendish character, serve 
to scare off the feathered prowlers by day ; but by 
night — on leaden wings, in long lines, like some of 
the strange old-world species long passed away — 
out flap the bats, who are even more fond of a plump 
young silkworm than the crows and their hungry 
companions. So that, what with the howling of the 
jackals, the screaming of a chance leopard in the 
distant forest, and the owl-like hootings of the “ silk- 
worm guard,” night is made hideous, and sleep an 
impossibility. The eggs from which the young 
worms are hatched, generally take from two to 
four weeks, according to the temperature and state 
of weather, before the young brood comes forth 
and makes its appearance. They are deposited 
by the moth amongst the crevices and rough pro- 
jecting plates of the bark, to which they are 
attached by a very glutinous material. This 
appears to protect them from the attacks of ants 
and other enemies. Nearly three months are 
passed in the egg and 1 arva state before the 
worm begins to spin ; and it would be difficult to 
find amongst all the curious and interesting 
instances of clever insect architecture which the 
upturned stone, the displaced bark, or hollow tree 
discloses, one more wonderful than the house on a 
stem built by the “ Tusseh ” worm. This, as it will 
be seen on reference to the accompanying illustra- 
tion, is of almost oval form, firmly and evenly 
woven, and hung from one end, much like some 
forest fruit at the end of a long, tough, horny stalk. 
This, at its upper end, has a perfect ring made in 
it, which passes round a twig of suitable size, and 
* The mocking-bird of India. 
