244 Newchwang Mountain Silk. 
are thus nourished for some days, when they are transferred 
to the youngest, most tender-leaved, oak bushes on the hill 
slopes. They are then about an inch in length, but are 
still black in colour. The transfer of the whole does not 
take place in one or two days. There is during the whole 
existence of the animal in its worm stage, a difference of 
eight or ten days in the backwardness or forwardness of 
individuals. After some days the worm has its first sleep 
or torpor, at the-close of which it changes its skin, and re- 
appears green in colour and larger in size. It has in all 
four of these sleeps or torpors, each of which lasts about 
two days. It changes its skin and becomes larger after each 
torpor, but retains after the first the same bright green 
colour. For its next, or fifth sleep, it prepares by spinning 
itself into a cocoon, in which it assumes the chrysalis shape, 
then bursts out as a butterfly and lays eggs, from which 
the small black worms are produced, when the processes 
just described are gone through again. These processes 
are, in the spring season, more rapidly performed than the 
similar processes in the autumn. The silk growers told 
me that those of spring required about sixty days, those of 
autumn about a hundred. In each season, as fast as the 
worms consume the leaves on one bush, they are removed 
by the attendant silk cultivators to another, the youngest 
bushes being used first. 
I was in some of the silk villeys from the 29th August 
to the 12th September, and had an opportunity of obser- 
ving the autumnal worms in their last stages. The most 
advanced began weaving their cocoons around them 
on the 2nd September, but at this time a large proportion 
of the worms were still in the stage between the third and 
fourth sleeps, while others, which had cast their skins for 
the last time, were feeding hard, in preparation of the work 
of cocoon spinning. On the 12th September fully one- 
half were inclosed in, or busy with their cocoons, while the 
most backward had all changed their skins for the fourth 
time. 
Just before spinning its cocoon, it is a bright green- 
bodied grub or caterpillar of 34 to 4 inches in length, with 
a light brown head. On its pale brown face, there are six 
or eight small black specks. Its body has twelve joints. 
On eight of these, it has on each a pair of claws, five pairs 
of what I shall call back claws on the hinder part of the 
body, and three pairs of front claws on the forward part. 
The hindermost, or tail joint, has a pair of the back claws ; 
