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Updated: June 10, 2025
But the most wonderful thing of all occurred when Wallace Hardison, a faithful friend to my work, sawed a board from the roof of his chicken house and carried to me twin Cecropia cocoons, spun so closely together they were touching, and slightly interwoven. By the closest examination I could discover slight difference between them.
It was also called Cecropia, from its founder. Until the time of Theseus it was a small town, confined to the Acropolis and Mars Hill. This hero is the great name of ancient Athenian legend, as Hercules is to Greece generally. He cleared the roads of robbers, and formed an aristocratical constitution, with a king, who was only the first of his nobles.
Among the most remarkable is the white-stemmed cecropia, the lofty massaranduba, or cow-tree, often rising to the height of one hundred and fifty feet; the seringa, or india-rubber tree, with its smooth grey bark, tall erect trunk, and thick glossy leaves. The assai-palm, with its slender stem, its graceful head and delicate green plumes, is at first more numerous than any other.
You children, too, must beware of them; touch them not, they will give you festering wounds. There is only one creature now that the Beauty-crawlers truly fear; that is the Long-stinger Wasp. He does indeed take toll of their race, but that is the price they still must pay for their beauty. Did they not drink of the double goblet? The Great Splendid Silk-Moth or Samia Cecropia
Among Cecropia and its Attacine cousins, also Luna, Polyphemus, and all other spinners the process is practically the same, save that it is much more elaborate; most of all with Cecropia, that spins the largest cocoon I ever have seen, and it varies its work more than any of the others.
It would certainly have gone to the furthest extremity of the grove as far away as possible from the invaders of its native domain. I should have supposed that they would have had great difficulty in ascertaining in what direction it was to be found, had I not observed that they stopped every now and then and examined the leaves of some of the trees. At length we arrived at a large cecropia tree.
The larvae of Samia cecropia, S. gloveri, and S. ceanothi, are very much alike; and hardly any difference can be observed in the first two stages.
Among the most remarkable were the white-stemmed cecropia; the cow-tree, of still loftier growth; and the indiarubber tree, with its smooth grey bark, tall erect trunk, and thick glossy leaves: while intermixed with them appeared the assai palm, with its slender stem, its graceful head, and its delicate green plumes; and the mirite, one of the most beautiful of the palm tribe, having abundant clusters of glossy fruit, and enormous spreading, fanlike leaves, cut into ribbons.
The outside leaf covering easily could be peeled away as the spinning did not seem to adhere except at the edges. There was a thin waterproof coating as with Cecropia, then a little loose spinning that showed most at top and bottom, the leaf wrapping being so closely drawn that it was plastered against the body of the heavy inner case around the middle until it adhered.
Sometimes the gathered silk ends comb sufficient down from an emerging Cecropia to leave a terra cotta rim around the opening from which it came; but I never saw one lose enough at this time to disfigure it. On very rare occasions a deformed moth appears. I had a Cecropia with one wing no larger than my thumb nail, and it never developed.
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