The total duration of a breed varies from sixty to seventy days; divided into the following periods:-- Four moultings, with one day’s illness attending each, 20 From fourth moulting to beginning of cocoon, 10 In the cocoon 20, as a moth 6, hatching of eggs 10, 36 -- 66 “On being tapped with the finger, the body renders a hollow sound; the quality of which shows whether they have come down for want of leaves on the tree, or from their having ceased feeding. “As the chrysalis is not soon killed by exposure to the sun, the cocoons are put on stages, covered with leaves, and exposed to the hot air from grass burned under them; they are next boiled for about an hour in a solution of the potash, made from incinerated rice-stalks; then taken out and put on a cloth folded over them to keep them warm. The floss being removed by hand, they are then thrown into a basin of hot water to be unwound; which is done in a very rude and wasteful way. “The plantations for the mooga silk-worm in Lower Assam, amount to 5000 acres, besides what the forests contain; and yield 1500 maunds of 84 lbs. each per annum. Upper Assam is more productive. “The cocoon of the _Koutkuri mooga_ is of the size of a fowl’s egg. It is a wild species, and affords filaments much valued for fishing-lines. “The _Arrindy_, or _Eria_ worm, and moth, is reared over a great part of Hindostan, but entirely within doors. It is fed principally on the _Hera_, or _Palma christi_ leaves, and gives sometimes 12 broods of spun silk in the course of a year. It affords a fibre which looks rough at first; but when woven, becomes soft and silky, after repeated washings. The poorest people are clothed with stuff made of it, which is so durable as to descend from mother to daughter. The cocoons are put in a close basket, and hung up in the house, out of reach of rats and insects. When the moths come forth, they are allowed to move about in the basket for twenty-four hours; after which the females are tied to long reeds or canes, twenty or twenty-five to each, and then hung up in the house. Of the eggs that are laid the first three days, about 200, only are kept; then tied up for seed. When a few of the worms are hatched, the cloths are put on small bamboo platters hung up in the house, in which they are fed with tender leaves. After the second moulting, they are removed to bunches of leaves suspended above the ground, beneath which a mat is laid to receive them when they fall. When they cease to feed, they are thrown into baskets full of dry leaves, among which they form their cocoons, two or three being often discovered joined together. “The _Saturnia trifenestrata_ has a yellow cocoon of a remarkably silky lustre. It lives on the soom-tree in Assam, but seems not to be much used.”