SILK-WORMS AND SERICULTURE. 659 



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agriculture, industry, commerce ; the producer and the artisan, the 

 laborer in the fields, and the laborer in towns. Our caterpillar and 

 its products will find a place in the elaborate treatises of states- 

 men; and a time will come when France will think herself happy 

 that the sovereign of a distant empire, some four thousand leagues 

 away, had been pleased to permit her to buy in his states, and pay 

 very dear for, the eggs of this caterpillar " you would abruptly 

 turn your back and say, "This man is a fool." And you would 

 not be alone: agriculturists, manufacturers, bankers, and officials, 

 could not find sarcasms enough for this poor dreamer. 



And yet it is the dreamer who is in the right. He has not 

 traced a picture of fancy. The caterpillar exists, and I do not ex- 

 aggerate the importance of this humble insect, which plays a part 

 so superior to what seemed to have fallen to it. It is this of which 

 I wish to give you the history. 



Let us first rapidly observe this animal, within and without. We 

 call it a silk-worm, but I have told you it was a caterpillar. (Fig. 7.) 

 I add that it has nothing marked in its appearance. It is larger 

 than the caterpillars that habitually prey upon our fruit-trees, but 

 smaller than the magnificent pearl-blue caterpillar so easy to find in 

 the potato-field. Like all caterpillars, it is is transformed into a but- 

 terfly. To know the history of this species is to know the history of 

 all others. 



Here in these bottles are some adult silk-worms, but here also 

 are some large pictures, where you will more easily follow the de- 

 tails that I shall point out, beginning with the exterior. 



At one of the extremities of its long, almost cylindrical body 

 (Fig. 7), we find the small head, provided with two jaws. These jaws 

 do not move up and down, as in man and most animals that surround 

 us, but laterally. All insects present the same arrangement. 



The body is divided into rings, and you see some little black points 

 placed on the side of each of these rings ; these are the orifices of res- 

 piration. The air enters by these openings, and penetrates the canals 

 that we shall presently find. , 



The silk-worm has ten pairs of feet. The three first pairs are 

 called the true feet, or scaly feet ; the five last, placed behind, are the 

 false feet, or the membranous feet. These are destined to disappear 

 at length. 



Let us pass to the interior of the body. Here we find, at first, the 

 digestive tube, which extends from one extremity to the other. It 

 commences at the cesophagus, that which you call the throat. Below 

 you remark an enormous cylindrical sac; it is the stomach, which is 

 followed by the very short intestine. These canals, slender and tor- 

 tuous, placed on the side, represent, at the same time, the liver and 

 kidneys. This great yellow cord is the very important organ in which 

 is secreted the silky material (Fig. 2). In proportion as the animal 



