The eldest worms climbed to the ceiling, scattered about, crawled in all
directions, and began to draw out single threads in various directions.
I watched one of them. It went into a corner, put forth about six
threads each two inches long, hung down from them, bent over in a
horseshoe, and began to turn its head and let out a silk web which began
to cover it all over. Toward evening it was covered by it as though in a
mist; the worm could scarcely be seen. On the following morning the worm
could no longer be seen; it was all wrapped in silk, and still it spun
out more.
Three days later it finished spinning, and quieted down. Later I learned
how much web it had spun in those three days. If the whole web were to
be unravelled, it would be more than half a mile in length, seldom less.
And if we figure out how many times the worm has to toss its head in
these three days in order to let out all the web, it will appear that in
these three days the worm tosses its head 300,000 times. Consequently,
it makes one turn a second, without stopping. But after the work, when
we took down a few cocoons and broke them open, we found inside the
worms all dried up and white, looking like pieces of wax.
I knew that from these larvæ with their white, waxen bodies would come
butterflies; but as I looked at them, I could not believe it. None the
less I went to look at them on the twentieth day, to see what had become
of them.
On the twentieth day, I knew, there was to be a change. Nothing was to
be seen, and I was beginning to think that something was wrong, when
suddenly I noticed that the end of one of the cocoons grew dark and
moist. I thought that it had probably spoiled, and wanted to throw it
away. But then I thought that perhaps it began that way, and so I
watched to see what would happen. And, indeed, something began to move
at the wet end. For a long time I could not make out what it was. Later
there appeared something like a head with whiskers. The whiskers moved.
Then I noticed a leg sticking out through the hole, then another, and
the legs scrambled to get out of the cocoon. It came out more and more,
and I saw a wet butterfly. When all six legs scrambled out, the back
jumped out, too, and the butterfly crawled out and stopped. When it
dried it was white; it straightened its wings, flew away, circled
around, and alighted on the window.
Two days later the butterfly on the window-sill laid eggs in a row, and
stuck them fast. The eggs were yellow. Twenty-five butterflies laid
eggs. I collected five thousand eggs. The following year I raised more
worms, and had more silk spun.