In Preserving The Cocons For Breed, You Must Choose An
Equal Number Of Males And Females; And These Are Very Easily
Distinguished By The Shape Of The Cocons; That Which Contains The
Male Is Sharp, And The Other Obtuse, At The Two Ends.
In ten or
twelve days after the cocon is finished, the worm makes its way
through it, in the form of a very ugly, unwieldy, aukward
butterfly, and as the different sexes are placed by one another
on paper or linen, they immediately engender.
The female lays her
eggs, which are carefully preserved; but neither she nor her mate
takes any nourishment, and in eight or ten days after they quit
the cocons, they generally die. The silk of these cocons cannot
be wound, because the animals in piercing through them, have
destroyed the continuity of the filaments. It is therefore, first
boiled, and then picked and carded like wool, and being
afterwards spun, is used in the coarser stuffs of the silk
manufacture. The other cocons, which yield the best silk, are
managed in a different manner. Before the inclosed worm has time
to penetrate, the silk is reeled off with equal care and
ingenuity. A handful of the cocons are thrown away into a kettle
of boiling water, which not only kills the animal, but dissolves
the glutinous substance by which the fine filaments of the silk
cohere or stick together, so that they are easily wound off,
without breaking. Six or seven of these small filaments being
joined together are passed over a kind of twisting iron, and
fixed to the wheel, which one girl turns, while another, with her
hands in the boiling water, disentangles the threads, joins them
when they chance to break, and supplies fresh cocons with
admirable dexterity and dispatch. There is a manufacture of this
kind just without one of the gates of Nice, where forty or fifty
of these wheels are worked together, and give employment for some
weeks to double the number of young women. Those who manage the
pods that float in the boiling water must be very alert,
otherwise they will scald their fingers. The smell that comes
from the boiling cocons is extremely offensive. Hard by the
harbour, there is a very curious mill for twisting the silk,
which goes by water. There is in the town of Nice, a well
regulated hospital for poor orphans of both sexes, where above
one hundred of them are employed in dressing, dyeing, spinning,
and weaving the silk. In the villages of Provence, you see the
poor women in the streets spinning raw silk upon distaves: but
here the same instrument is only used for spinning hemp and flax;
which last, however, is not of the growth of Nice - But lest I
should spin this letter to a tedious length, I will now wind up
my bottom, and bid you heartily farewell.
LETTER XXIII
NICE, December 19, 1764.
SIR, - In my last, I gave you a succinct account of the silkworm,
and the management of that curious insect in this country.
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