The Elk County Advocate

Assisted by the microscope, the minute internal mechanism of that utilized worm has been perfectly demonstrated. As soon as it is hatched a voracious appetite is manifested. This led men in early, far-off times of oriental civilization, to take advantage of their unsatisfied hunger, to turn the product of their labors to the benefit of humanity. The voracity of the silk worm has reference to a law of their nature, on which the perpetuity of the race depends. Nature is always careful to make positive provision for the reproduction of each and every species of living thing which has been created, till the object of their existence has been attained, when, for aught we know to the contrary, they disappear forever like the lamented dodo, for which naturalists are still in mourning.

Silk worms eat almost without cessation, provided appropriate food is placed before them, from their exit from the shell up to a certain point, when they stop suddenly—as though they were full and could hold no more. In the meanwhile they are growing in size rapidly, so that, besides being nourished by certain properties belonging to the mulberry leaf, there is elaborated a clear, transparent fluid, which is secreted from the homogeneous mass in their stomach, and conducted by two very long, coiled membranous tubes to two curiously-formed reservoirs, lying on each side of the body. They have a slight semblance to shot pouches. When they stop feeding, those sacks are filled to their utmost capacity.

At that juncture silk worm culturists say the worm dies as soon as it spins a cocoon. That is a mistaken idea. The worm does not die, but makes rapid preparation for passing through a remarkable metamorphosis, by developing into a winged insect. The two sacks have extremely fine, attenuated pipes extending from them to two minute orifices just under the mouth, but not opening in it as some have supposed. The worm on feeling the notifying sensation that the evolution of wings, legs, and a proboscis are ready to begin to shoot into proportions, contracts the walls of its body on the sacks—forcing the pent up fluid to flow onwardly. Just as it arrives at the orifices where it comes into the open air, it passes through two little glandular carbuncles—smaller than the smallest pin head, which pours a secretion peculiar to themselves, which, on mixing with the tiny current of clear fluid from the reservoirs, in a twinkling of an eye changes it into a tenacious silk thread. On one side of the glands the fluid is thin and transparent, on the other it is a strong fibre. Probably its exit into the atmosphere contributes something towards the conversion.

A more curious chemical phenomenon has never been recognized. It has no parallel in entomology, unless it is partially found in the spider family, a subject to be hereafter treated. Spinning a cocoon, then, is simply winding itself round and round in a soft, silken, flossy material extruded from its own body. The muscular apparatus by which the worm accomplishes that operation would be a study for a college theme, and a puzzle for many big wigs. Left to itself, unmolested, the apparently dead worm—now in a chrysalis state—that is, in a profound sleep, breathes all the while through spiracles or openings on each side, which correspond with orifices in its new body about coming forth. The thick coat of fat, equivalent to blubber under the skin of a whale, is absorbed for food while the change is progressing. When exhausted, the perfect butterfly is finished—stretches out its folded limbs, bursts open the old dry outside worm covering, crawls out of the cocoon and flits away among the flowers, if not kept a prisoner. It is the policy of silk worm growers to do so. The female soon begins to extrude an immense volume of eggs. When that has been concluded, the final cause of life with them has been accomplished. Another generation of silk worms has been secured and death then closes the scene.

Thus an humble, unsightly worm is an instrument in the hands of man for clothing queens and furnishing gorgeous hangings for palaces. It is one of the links in the golden chain of nature which demonstrates the mutual dependence of one order of beings upon another for necessaries in one case, comforts in another, and the refinements which characterize the highest grade of civilization. A silk worm, low as it is, feeding on the margin of a mulberry leaf, is a benefactor to the world and indispensable to the stability of institutions and manufactures which are similes of wealth, taste, and artistic elegance.