each other, raised upon four
wooden posts. The floors are made of canes, and strewed with fresh
mulberry-leaves: the corner posts, and other occasional props, for
sustaining the different floors, are covered with a coat of loose
heath, which is twisted round the wood. The worms when hatched are laid
upon the floors; and here you may see them in all the different stages
(if moulting or casting the slough, a change which they undergo three
times successively before they begin to work. The silk-worm is an
animal of such acute and delicate sensations, that too much care cannot
be taken to keep its habitation clean, and to refresh it from time to
time with pure air. I have seen them languish and die in scores, in
consequence of an accidental bad smell. The soiled leaves, and the
filth which they necessarily produce, should be carefully shifted every
day; and it would not be amiss to purify the air sometimes with fumes
of vinegar, rose, or orange-flower water. These niceties, however, are
but little observed. They commonly lie in heaps as thick as shrimps in
a plate, some feeding on the leaves, some new hatched, some intranced
in the agonies of casting their skin, sonic languishing, and some
actually dead, with a litter of half-eaten faded leaves about them, in
a close room, crouded with women and children, not at all remarkable
for their cleanliness. I am assured by some persons of credit, that if
they are touched, or even approached, by a woman in her catamenia, they
infallibly expire. This, however, must be understood of those females
whose skins have naturally a very rank flavour, which is generally
heightened at such periods. The mulberry-leaves used in this country
are of the tree which bears a small white fruit not larger than a
damascene. They are planted on purpose, and the leaves are sold at so
much a pound. By the middle of June all the mulberry-trees are
stripped; but new leaves succeed, and in a few weeks, they are cloathed
again with fresh verdure. In about ten days after the last moulting,
the silk-worm climbs upon the props of his house, and choosing a
situation among the heath, begins to spin in a most curious manner,
until he is quite inclosed, and the cocon or pod of silk, about the
size of a pigeon's egg, which he has produced remains suspended by
several filaments. It is no unusual to see double cocons, spun by two
worms included under a common cover. There must be an infinite number
of worms to yield a