356 
white with a black tuft on the tail in the male, pointed without a 
tuft in the female. 
The insect appears to be Caprima coHchylalis, Guen., and is 
recorded from India and Burma, but I can find no account of its 
life history. 
H. N. RlDLEY. 
RAMIE. 
A Nascent Industry for India. 
The London correspondent of the Pioneer , writes : — 
The oft debated question whether planters in India in search of 
profitable forms of cultivation can grow rhea fibre for manufactur- 
ing purposes of a. quality enabling them to compete with the China 
grass grown in the bar East has, you recently infonned your rea- 
ders, been put to practical test by the Bengal Rhea Syndicate, who 
already have some 5,000 acres under cultivation and have been 
exhibiting in Calcutta sample underclothing, velvets, tray cloths, 
incandescent gas mantles and other articles made therefrom, 
These goods were manufactured I believe, on the continent, but at 
a time when the problem of developing inter-imperial trade is up- 
permost in the public mind it is a matter for congratulation that 
the pioneers of what is, I believe, destined to be a great industry 
are to be found in this country as well as on the Continent. The 
Ramie Fibre Spinning Syndicate Limited of 50 Lime treat, E. C., 
have for the past two or th^ee years been quietly, but steadily, 
feeling their way, patenting processes, learning trade secrets and 
gaining experience by experiments on a comparatively small scale, 
and therefore at much smaller cost than would have been the case 
had great things been attempted too soon. 1 have no sort or kind 
of personal interest in the concern, and it was from the stand point 
of a detached observer, desirous of obtaining information for your 
readers, that I paid a visit to the factory of the Syndicate the other 
day. The works are situated on the outskirts of the developing 
town of Romford which is within very easy reach of London and is 
well served by the Great Eastern Railway. 
I was conducted over the factory by Mr. FRANK BlRDVVOOD, 
who as Secretary to the concern has given a great deal of time and 
thought to its interests, and has made himself as much at home in 
discussing the intricacies of textile manufactures and the relative 
advantages of this or that machine as he is amongst his law books 
and briefs. The Syndicate have hither! o mainly relied on the 
China market for raw material, but the directors, not only from a 
business point of view, but also because they have had in most 
cases long connection with India, official or mercantile, are very 
desirous of bringing the Indian planter into the benefits of co- 
operation in their enterprise. As Mr. BiRDWOOD pointed out 
recently in the Anglo-Indian Review , the cultivation of ramie is not 
a task on which the planter can enter haphazard and without due 
