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I have been told by other workers that they have had captive caterpillars use earth and excrement in their cocoons.
Sam's dull brain which up to this time had never busied itself about anything except how to get other men's goods away from them, had suddenly awakened to the wonders of the world. It was he that recognized a little colony of cocoons on the underside of leaves and twigs and called attention to them. "Say, ain't dem some o' de critters you was showin' de fellers t'other night?"
One morning, in the cell of a large female, I found a cocoon of beautiful yellow silk containing a rounded mass of eggs. Soon the same occurred with other females, and there were fifteen cocoons, which would give about seven thousand spiders.
The whole amount of cocoons raised in the province, was six thousand three hundred and one pounds, of which two thousand pounds came from Ebenezer, and four thousand pounds were made at Whitefield's Orphan-house.
Women were employed at the Court of Justinian to preside over the looms, and the manufacture of silk was not allowed elsewhere. The only hindrance to this scheme was that the silk itself had to be brought from China. But in the reign of Justinian, two monks who had been travelling in the Orient, brought to the emperor, as curiosities, some silkworms and cocoons.
"Yes," said the Bird Woman, "I will buy them, also the big moth caterpillars that are creeping everywhere now, and the cocoons that they will spin just about this time. I have a sneaking impression that the mystery, wonder, and the urge of their pure beauty, are going to force me to picture and paint our moths and put them into a book for all the world to see and know.
The first-born receive the benefit of her early enthusiasm: theirs is the well-spread table, theirs the spacious apartments. The work has begun to pall by the time that the last eggs are laid; and the last-comers have to put up with a scurvy portion of food and a tiny corner. The difference shows itself in another way after the cocoons are spun.
"When the ends have been caught in this way they are passed on to the reeler; but if after trying this method the girls find the ends do not free themselves they put such cocoons into a different temperature of water, or else toss them out entirely and leave them to the employees who handle the lots that require special treatment.
The manner in which the males of certain moths congregate in extraordinary numbers round a single female, apparently indicates a great excess of males, though this fact may perhaps be accounted for by the earlier emergence of the males from their cocoons. Mr. Stainton informs me that from twelve to twenty males, may often be seen congregated round a female Elachista rufocinerea.
From the middle of May to the end of June of the year I was most occupied with this book, my room was filled with cocoons and pupa cases. The encased moths I had reason to believe were on the point of appearing lay on a chair beside my bed or a tray close my pillow. That month I did not average two hours of sleep in a night, and had less in the daytime.
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