it alway washes her hands and feet. With the Assamese the idea prevails as in other parts, that the eye of the stranger is hurtful— their account of this is, that the worms, fancying the stranger is criticising them, get sulky, abstain from food and die.

The large and small mulberry worms are reared in Assam. I will describe the rearing of those which produce only one bund a year, (the larger,) they being more in use than the others in this district. It will be sufficient to shew how far the process assimilates to that followed in Bengal and other parts. The moths are made to deposit their eggs on pieces of cloth-these are packed up with the household clothing; when the time of hatching approaches (December), they are taken out and exposed to the air; when the worms are hatched they are fed the first three or four days on the tender leaves cut up, in new earthen pots; then on a bamboo tray. After the first moulting they are removed to the mutchang (machán) or stages. When they are about beginning to spin, they are put on bamboo trays fitted up with pieces of matting fixed perpendicularly at intervals of two inches these in the first afternoon are exposed for half an hour to the side where the sun is shining, and afterwards hung up in the house. After leaving as many as are required for breeding, those that are to be wound off, after having been exposed to the sun for three or four days, are put over a slow fire in an earthen vase full of water. One person winds off the silk with an instrument made of three pieces of stick joined together thus, the perpendicular one is held at one end with the right hand, and the left directs

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the thread over the cross bars-taking care in doing this

to make it rub against the fore-arm to twist it—whilst another person attends to the fire and the putting on new When a sufficient quantity for a skein has thus accumulated it is taken off the cross bars.

cocoons.

There are hardly any plantations of mulberry in Assam, on sach a scale as to be worth mentioning; a few men of rank have small patches of it, sufficient to produce silk for their own use; the few ryuts that sell the silk generally have not more than a seer to dispose of in the year, the produce of a few plants round their huts or in the hedges of their fields. The leaves are not sold as in Bengal, and when a ryut's own supply fails, he obtains it from neighbors who have a few trees merely for the fruit. The worms are reared by joogees alone, people of an inferior caste :-those of the highest can cultivate the plant and do all the out-of-door work-but none but a joogee can, without degradation, attend to the worms or touch the silk whilst reeling. As the same prejudice does not exist in Ben

gal, it must have been kept up purposely by the despotic rulers of the country, after mulberry cultivators were introduced, to ensure the use of the silk being confined to themselves and their courtiers-a selfishness which may be observed in many of their rules and prohibitions: this alone would have been a bar to the extension of the cultivation of the mulberry in Assam, were there not already greater facilities of obtaining silk from the mooga and eria worms. No mention is made of silk in the returns of the Hydra chowkey, I do not think half a maund of it altogether is exported in any shapethe price of it is eight or ten rupees a seer, but it is not readily procurable. Mr. SCOTT, a few years ago, introduced from Rungpoor, reelers, reels and plants of the morus alba, and established a factory at Darang, with a view to extend the culture of mulberry silk, and improve the reeling of the mooga. Several causes rendered the experiment abortive, the want of European superintendence and Mr. Scorr's untimely death being the principal ones*.

Eria silk. The eria worm and moth differ from the mulberry worm and moth in every respect, as will be better understood by the accompanying drawings and insects: like it, however, it goes through four different moultings, but its sickness in doing it lasts only twenty-four hours; the last stage takes eight days, the others four. The duration of its life varies according to seasons: in summer it is shorter, and the produce both greater and better; at this season, from its birth to the time it begins its cocoon, twenty to twenty-four days expire, in fifteen more the moth comes forth, the eggs are laid in three days, and in five they are hatched, making the total duration of a breed forty-three to forty-seven days: in winter it is nearly two months; the number of breeds in the year are reckoned at seven.

This worm is, like the mulberry worm, reared entirely within doors: it is fed principally on the hera or palma-christi leaves, it eats the mulberry leaf also but is said to prefer the former; when the palmachristi leaves fail, they are also fed on those of several other trees known in this part of Assam by the following names :

1. Kossool.

2. Hindoo gass.

3. Meekeerdal.

• From the opinions given by several merchants of Calcutta on samples of Assam mulberry silk, reeled on Italian reels from worms properly fed and attended to, I am led to believe this province exceedingly favorable to the production of very superior silk.-The samples sent down would have fetched the highest prices in the Calcutta market, and they were got up under the unfavorable circumstances of a rude experiment.-F. JENKINS.

4. Okonnee.

5. Gomarree.

6. Litta Pakoree.

7. Borzonolly.

The worms thrive best and produce most when entirely fed on the palma-christi-it is the only plant which is cultivated purposely for it, there is hardly one ryut who has not a small patch of it near his house or on the hedges of his fields-it requires little or no culture -the ground is turned up a little with the hoe and the seeds thrown in without ploughing; whilst the plant is young it is weeded once or twice, but it is afterwards left to itself. The plant is renewed every three years. On the leaves of Nos. 1 and 2, worms can be reared entirely, but they do not thrive well upon it, many die even after having begun the cocoons, and the few of these that are got are small and yield but little. These and the others are only used in the fourth or fifth stage when they are considered to answer quite as well as the palma-christi leaves. The kossool (No. 1) alone can be given alternately with the palma-christi. The whole of these trees are found in the forests, but not cultivated.

To breed from, the Assamese select cocoons from those which have been begun in the largest number on the same day-generally the second or third day after cocoons have begun to be formed-those that contain males being distinguished by a more pointed end. These cocoons are put in a closed 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, (known only by the larger body) are tied to long reeds or canes, twenty or twenty-five to each, and these are hung up in the house. The eggs that have been laid the first three days amounting to about two hundred are alone kept, they are tied in a piece of cloth and suspended to the roof until a few begin to hatch-these eggs are white, and the size of turnip 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, under them upon the ground a mat is laid to receive them when they fall; when they have ceased feeding they are thrown into baskets full of dry leaves, amongst, which they form their cocoons, two or three being often found joined together.

The caterpillar is at first about a quarter of an inch in length, and appears nearly black; as it increases in size it becomes of an orange color, with six black spots on each of the twelve rings which form its body.