The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1886-04-03
THE SILK WORM.
A PEEP AT THE WORK OF THE TINY
MANUFACTURERS.
The Ways of the WOrm-Ready to Begin
His Job of Spinnins-HOw He
Performs the Task-The
Cocoon.
[Harper,s 1Iaeazine.1


The insect is in one sense a tiny manu-
facturer himself, finding his @raw material
chiefly in the leaf Of the mulberry tree
(norus), which gives name to the common
silk-moth (Bombyx MORT, the caterpillar OF
which is the silk-worm The tree is said by
a proverb to be made for the worm and the
worm for the tree, and it seems to have a
fiber peculiarly suitable for textile use,
some OF the Pacific islanders making cloth
ing by macerating the bark of the paper
mulberry, without the intervention of the
silk-worm. Most of the silk Of commerce IS
made by this one moth from this one food.
yet it can feed, In whole or in part, upon
other leaves, as those of the Usage orange in
this country, and it has score OF cousins
or more distant relations, as the Tussah
moth (Antheria paphia) Of India, which live
upon other trees, and produce similar ma
teriaL
The moth is about an inch long, whitish
with brown stripes, and lays at the close of
summer numerous eggs about the size Of a
pin-head, attached singly to the leaf by a
kind of gum, which, when dry, has a silky
appearances. The moths soon die; the egg,
do not hatch until the next summer, and
can meanwhile be sent around the world
The sale of grain or seed, as the eggs are
also called is of itself a business, for it
brings as much as 81 per ounce, tenfold the
through the silk world. Each moth lays
from 400 to 700 eggs, but it takes over 600,
600 TO make pound. In obtaining eggs for
breeding the grower usually places the
moths on cloths in a dark, warm room,
where they contentedly lay their eggs and
die In tropical countries, as southern
China and India, the eggs hatch by natural
heat; in others, artificial warmth is neces-
sary; and in old times hot beds were used,
little bags in their bosoms.
The careful grower makes ready for the
Matching by providing lattieed trays OF
bundles Of twigs, about which the food of
finely chopped mulberry leaves is distrib-
uted. The tiny worm at first eats two meals
day; at the end of five days he casts his
first skin, on the ninth day his second;
again, on the fifteenth, twenty-second, and
thirty second days he "moults," becoming
torpid, and exchanging his old skin for new.
Like his fellow worm, man, he has "seven
ages;" the sixth, when he has attained the
mature age of 30 days. is the spinning, the
last the breeding period At the approach
of the spinning age the worms from a single
ounce of eggs NEARLY 10000 eggs will have
required over 1000 pounds Of leaves, and
will need about 1874 square feet of space for
their homes
Each days Matching is kept together, lest
the older eat up the food of the weaker
brethren, and every care must be taken TO
prevent tn, growth Of the minute fungus
which makes "silk-worm rot" and to ward
of other diseases. In 1857 Europe was
swept of much Of its silken wealth by one of
these parasitic diseases, and one of Pas
tours early triumphs was in discovering its
nature.
The worm is conservative, and never at
tsmpts to move from his place until it Is
time to begin spinning; he then becomes dis
tended with the silk juice and semi-transpar-
emit, like ripe yellow plum, and can pres
emily be observed lifting his head and look
ing about for a good site for his cocoon
building, which has been furnished by
the cocoon grower in arches of twigs
or lattice-work. Some of the worms
are lazy, and the twig has to be
applied. The spinner, with careful fore
cast, adjusts his body in the best position
for the cocoon, and commences to throw the
floss that forms its outer coating.
The material of the silk is a gummy secrs-
tion in sericteria, two large glands along
each side of the body, terminating each in
spinneret in the mouth; each fiber of the
thread proves on microscopic examination
to be double, one strand coming from each
spinneret What the angler prizes as silk
worm gut" is this sericterium soaked in vim
egar stretched and dried in the sun The
worm CLOSES himself in tighter and tighter.
the interior thread being the finer; he fixes
his body in place with his hooked Feet, and
throws his head here and there as he spins.
The thread is sometimes 1900 feet long
without break; good cocoons should yield
500 yards; It takes at least 2, 500 worms to
raise pound of silk Within five or six
days the spinning Is completed and the moth
presently makes preparation to emerge, by
the help OF another secretion, which softens
or dissolveS the end Of the cocoon. Since in
piercing the cocoon the worm breaks the
continuity of the thread, it is usually killed
Just before this stage by exposing the
cocoons to the sun where the temperature Is
above 50 degrees, or by baking, steaming,
or otherwise heating them carefully, so that
the fiber is not gummed together by the