The ailant silkworm : observations on its habit, management, food, and value : made during the introduction, naturalization, and rearing of the first stock in Queensland and New South Wales, and affording some elementary information for the benefit of persons contemplating the commercial growth of ailant cocoons in Australia / contributed by Charles Brady.

  • Brady, Charles.
Date:
1868
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The ailant silkworm : observations on its habit, management, food, and value : made during the introduction, naturalization, and rearing of the first stock in Queensland and New South Wales, and affording some elementary information for the benefit of persons contemplating the commercial growth of ailant cocoons in Australia / contributed by Charles Brady. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    31/38 (page 31)
    It must be said, as a general caution to the grower of silk out of doors, not less than to the cultivator of domesticated worms, too great attention cannot be paid to cleanliness j slovenliness and neglect will inevitably deprive the ailantery of its best resources and results; the ground should be kept clear of all encumbrance, especially of loose rubbish and of whatever may harbour slugs (which are very fond of caterpillars) and any kind of vermin. Insects of one species bring those of others, and birds and other animals as well to devour both, and these one and all would soon make havock with the young stock. It would be well to have no vegetation besides the ailantus on the ground. ^ The ahaiits not unfrequently please to change their diet. When this caprice takes them, they quietly drop themselves off the bush or crawl down the stem on to the ground, and travel in quest of another plant the leaf of which may be more agreeable to their appetites. They are never hurt by the tumble, for the tubercles act as springs to break the fall j the friction of the leaves against each other by the wind now and then rubs them off the leaflets, and a sudden jerk while they are caught napping sometimes dislodges the burly, fat, sleepy ones, but few healthy caterpillars if of any size will be lost if the ailantery is kept clean. The reader will have gathered, in the course of the fore- going, that the range of life of the ailant is comprised Avithin the brief period of from about nine to thirteen weeks, say in the egg eight or nine to fourteen flays, in the cater- • pillar from twenty-six to forty, in the cocoon twenty- four to forty days, if the emerging be not delayed (as possibly may be most advantageous) until the following season. He wffl have remarked the number of eggs indicat- ing a progeny equal to a multiplication of the stock (half of 160 to 360) 80 to 180-fold, and occasionally even over 200- fold. Assuming all these to reproduce in like manner only once more or a second time within the year, the increase Avill be enormous. In reality, however, there are many