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It is the trifling carelessnesses that bring bad results the tiny things that it seems silly to take the trouble to do. If we lose our crop of cocoons because of slighting the little details it will be our own fault, and we shall deserve failure; if, on the other hand, we do the best we know, we shall have no regrets.
But what made us notice these Nopals was, that they were covered with what looked like little white cocoons, out of which, when they were pressed, came a drop of deep crimson fluid. This is the cochineal insect, but only the wild variety; the fine kind, which is used for dye, and conies from the province of Oajaca, miles off, is covered only with a mealy powder.
One woman, it is true, had succeeded in raising a few worms on witch-grass; but they had not prospered, the silk from their cocoons proving poor. Mulberry leaves they craved and mulberry leaves they must have.
Although such a precaution is not indispensable, I take care to place some cocoons in each cylinder. The hatching of some of the Osmiae will therefore take place under cover of the galleries destined to be the building-yard later; and the site will be all the more deeply impressed on their memory.
Crossings of these species took places in 1880, and, as I stated before, the ova obtained from a long pairing between a Ceanothi female with a Gloveri male, were the only ones which were fertile. The Gloveri cocoons received in 1880 were of a very inferior quality, and produced moths from which no pairings could be obtained, although some crossings took place.
Favier wields the pick and spade; I break the clods which he brings down and open the cells, whose contents cocoons and remnants of provisions I at once pour into a little screw of paper. Sometimes, when the larva is not developed, the stack of Bees is intact; more often the victuals have been consumed; but it is always possible to tell the number of items provided.
The duration of the pupa stage in this, and probably in other species, therefore, depends upon the temperature in which the larvae have lived, as well as the degree of heat in which the cocoons are kept; and in transporting cocoons from India to Europe, I think it will be found that the moths are less liable to be prematurely forced out by the heat of the Red Sea when the larvae have been reared in a warm climate than when they have been reared in a cold one.
I regard it as morally certain that sex goes back to the ovary and that the egg produced yields a male or female caterpillar in the beginning. I am becoming convinced that caterpillars recognize sex in each other, basing the theory on the facts that in half a dozen instances I have found cocoons, spun only a few inches apart. One pair brought to me as interwoven.
The last female moth emerged, I think, about the end of September. These cocoons had hibernated twice, as has been the case with other Indian species. I had Indian cocoons which hibernated even three times. Attacus cynthia, from the province of Kumaon. With the Atlas cocoons, a large quantity of Cynthia cocoons were collected in the province of Kumaon.
Perhaps the shock of so great a change in his surroundings had accelerated changes in his opinions, just as the cocoons of silkworms, when sent in baskets by rail, hatch before their time through the novelty of heat and jolting.
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