NOTES ON A FEW AMERICAN BOMBYCES

Extract

In my Report on Silk-producing Bombyces and other Lepidoptera, reprinted from the “Journal of the Society of Arts,” Feb. 13th and March 5th, 1880, I speak of the disastrous effects of the weather on most species during the year 1879.

This year (1880), although the splendid weather we had in August and at the beginning of Sept. allowed of the successful rearing of several species in the open air, the wet and cold weather lasting till about the end of July affected and retarded Lepidoptera, as in 1879; the moths of Samia promethea, for instance, had not all emerged before the end of August. With a ferv exceptions, none of the Indian species emerged at all, and ova of many well-paired female moths were partly infertile.