Several years ago Mrs. Whitby took great pains in breeding silkworms on a large scale, and she informed me that some of her caterpillars had dark eyebrows. This is probably the first step in reversion towards the tiger-like marks, and I was curious to know whether so trifling a character would be inherited; at my request she separated in 1848 twenty of these caterpillars, and having kept the moths separate, bred from them. Of the many caterpillars thus reared, "every one without exception had eyebrows, some darker and more decidedly marked than the others, but _all_ had eyebrows more or less plainly visible." Black caterpillars occasionally appear amongst those of the common kind, but in so variable a manner, that according to M. Robinet the same race will one year exclusively produce white caterpillars, and the next year many black ones; nevertheless, I have been informed by M. A. Bossi of Geneva, that, if these black caterpillars are separately bred from, they reproduce the same colour; but the cocoons and moths reared from them do not present any difference. The caterpillar in Europe ordinarily moults four times before passing into the cocoon stage; but there are races "à trois mues," and the Trevoltini race likewise moults only thrice. It might have been thought that so important a physiological difference would not have arisen under domestication; but M. Robinet[507] states that, on the one hand, ordinary caterpillars occasionally spin their cocoons after only three moults, and, on the other hand, "presque toutes les races à trois mues, que nous avons expérimentées, ont fait quatre mues à la seconde ou à la troisième année, ce qui semble prouver qu'il a suffi de les placer dans des conditions favorables pour leur rendre une faculté qu'elles avaient perdue sous des influences moins favorables."