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On descending into the plain we found it well cultivated, being almost covered with white mulberry trees. We noticed several women engaged in stripping them of their foliage, whilst others were winding the silk off the cocoons.
The house stood a little back from the badly paved sidewalk; its meager dooryard was inclosed by an iron fence a row of black and rusted spears, spotted under their tines with innumerable gray cocoons.
Ants, again, hit always upon exactly the right moment for opening the cocoons in which their larvae are confined and for setting them free, the larva being unable to do this for itself. Yet the life of only a few kinds of insects lasts longer than a single breeding season. What then can they know about the contents of their eggs and the fittest place for their development?
Both species had, no doubt, fed on the same trees; as the Cynthia, like the Atlas cocoons, were all inclosed in leaves of the Berberis vulgaris, which shows that Cynthia is also a polyphagous species.
Moreover a matter of still greater importance the larvæ of the Osmia fed in this manner attain their normal growth and spin their cocoons, from which adults issue in the following year. Despite the albuminous diet the cycle of evolution completes itself without mishap. What are we to conclude from all this? I confess I am embarrassed. Omne vivum ex ovo, says the physiologist.
Bengal proves an ideal silk-raising country, for because of the climate there are yearly three crops of cocoons one in March, one in July, and one in November. Some of the other countries have two crops; others only one." "And France?" put in Pierre. "Ah, Pierre, there should be no need for me to tell you, a French boy, of your own land.
From the eighteenth century on we get reports on depletion of fields due to wrong application of the new system. Another plant deeply affected Chinese agriculture: cotton. It is often forgotten that, from very early times, the Chinese in the south had used kapok and similar fibres, and that the cocoons of different kinds of worms had been used for silk.
It is already known that it feeds on several species of trees, besides the ailantus, such as the laburnum, lilac, cherry, and, I think, also on the castor-oil plant; the common barberry has, therefore, to be added to the above food plants. These Kumaon Cynthia cocoons were somewhat smaller and much darker in color than those of the acclimatized Cynthia reared on the ailantus.
About eight or ten days after hatching the larvæ spin delicate brownish cocoons in which they pass the pupal stage, issuing a few days later as the adult fleas. It will at once appear, then, that it is important to provide the cats and dogs with sleeping-places that can be kept clean.
In fact, not only has the question been asked, but an argument of great apparent strength and much plausibility has been formulated and extensively circulated, tending to show that the difficulty of cheap labor, which it has been shown stood in the way of reeling without improved machinery, will make the raising of cocoons also a hopelessly unprofitable task.
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