[Illustration: METHOD OF REELING RAW SILK.
The cocoons are soaked in hot water in the basins shown in the front
to loosen the gum. The silk threads then pass through the hands of the
operators and are reeled on swifts in the cabinet shown in the rear.
A more modern appliance for reeling the silk is shown on one of the
following pages.]
The foregoing pages and pictures by courtesy of Brainerd & Armstrong
Silk Company, from their book entitled, “Silk, the Real versus the
Imitation.”
[Illustration: FULL GROWN LARVA--SHOWING POSITION IN MOLTING.[2]]
[Illustration: MALE MOTH.[2]]
[Illustration: FEMALE MOTH.[2]]
[Illustration: SIDE VIEW OF CHRYSALIS.[2]]
[Illustration: BOTTOM VIEW OF CHRYSALIS.[2]]
[2] The cuts on this page and balance of cuts in the story of silk
copyright by the Corticelli Silk Mills.
The silk moth exists in four states--egg, larva, chrysalis, and adult.
The egg of the moth is nearly round, slightly flattened, and closely
resembles a turnip seed. When first laid it is yellow, soon turning
a gray or slate color if impregnated. It has a small spot on one end
called the micropyle, and when the worm hatches, which in our climate
is about the first of June, it gnaws a hole through this spot. Black
in color, scarcely an eighth of an inch in length, covered with long
hair, with a shiny nose, and sixteen small legs, the baby worm is born,
leaving the shell of the egg white and transparent.
~THE SILKWORM—HOW HE DOES HIS WORK~
Small and tender leaves of the white mulberry or osage orange are fed
the young worm which simply pierces them and sucks the sap. Soon the
worm becomes large enough to eat the tender portions between the veins
of the leaf. In eating they hold the leaves by the six forward feet,
and then cut off semi-circular slices from the leaf’s edge by the
sharp upper portion of the mouth. The jaws move sidewise, and several
thousand worms eating make a noise like falling rain.
The worms are kept on trays made of matting, that are placed on racks
for convenience in handling. The leaves are placed beside the worms,
or upon a slatted or perforated tray placed above them, and those that
crawl off are retained, while the weak ones are removed with the old
leaves. The worms breathe through spiracles, small holes which look
like black spots, one row of nine down each side of the body. They have
no eyes, but are quite sensitive to a jar, and if you hit the rack
they stop eating and throw their heads to one side. They are velvety,
smooth, and cold to the touch, and the flesh is firm, almost hard. The
pulsation of the blood may be traced on the back of the worm, running
towards the head.
The worm has four molting seasons, at each of which it sheds its old
skin for a new one, since in the very rapid growth of the worm the old
skin cannot keep pace with the growth of the body. The periods between
these different molts are called “ages,” there being five, the first
extending from the time of hatching to the end of the first molt, and
the last from the end of the fourth molt to the transformation of the
insect into a chrysalis. The time between the four “molts” will be
found to vary, depending upon the species of worm.
[Illustration: HOW THE SILKWORMS ARE REARED.[2]]
When the worm molts it ceases eating, grows slightly lighter in color,
fastens itself firmly by the ten prolegs, and especially by the last
two, to some object, and holding up its head and the fore part of its
body remains in a torpid state for nearly two days.
By each successive molt the worm grows lighter, finally becoming a
slate or cream white color, and the hair, which was long at first,
gradually disappears. The gummy liquid which combines the two strands
hardens immediately on exposure to the air.
The worm works incessantly, forcing the silk out by the contraction
of its body. The thin, gauze-like network which soon surrounds it
gradually thickens, until, twenty-four hours after beginning to spin,
the worm is nearly hidden from view. However, the cocoon is not
completed for about three days.
~SIXTY-FIVE MOTIONS OF HIS HEAD A MINUTE~
The cocoon is tough, strong, and compact, composed of a firm,
continuous thread, which is, however, not wound in concentric circles,
but irregularly in short figure eight loops, first in one place and
then in another. In doing this the worm makes sixty-five elliptical
motions of his head a minute or a total of 300,000 in an average
cocoon. The motion of the worm’s head when starting the cocoon is very
rapid, and nine to twelve inches of silk flow from the spinneret in
a minute, but later the average would be about half this amount per
minute.
[Illustration: SILKWORM EATING.[2]]
[Illustration: SILKWORM—ONE OF THE WORLD’S GREATEST WORKERS