EXHIBITS AT THE MUSEUH 



Silkworm Culture 



The Museum is fortunate in being able to exhibit this month 

 an extensive silkworm culture. Miss Henrietta A. Kelly, for- 

 merly special agent in silk investigation for the United States 

 Department of Agriculture, has kindly secured scientifically 

 tested eggs from Italy, and has superintended the rearing of the 

 worms. The exhibit has been installed in one corner of the main 

 hall, where several thousands of the caterpillars in various stages 

 of development may be seen feeding. Ages of breeding have 

 produced numerous races and varieties of the mulberry silkworm, 

 Bombyx (Sericaria) mori; those now being reared at the Museum 

 are of two varieties, known as Chinese White and Chinese Yellow, 

 their cocoons being of these colors respectively. 



Rearing shelves built on Italian models receive the young cat- 

 erpillars as soon as they have hatched from the egg. Here they 

 feed upon leaves of the white mulberry, Moms alba, throughout 

 the five ages which constitute their life in caterpillar form. Dur- 

 ing four brief periods only do they cease their continuous night 

 and day feeding, these being the so-called "sleeps" which mark 

 the four moults. Each caterpillar moults five times but the fifth 

 moult occurs within the cocoon. 



The stands prepared for the spinning of the cocoons, the mount- 

 ing, as it is called, have bundles of brush sprung in rows between 

 the shelves. When the caterpillars, about a week after the fourth 

 moult, grow restless and refuse to eat they are taken on elm 

 branches from the feeding shelves to those arranged for the mount- 

 ing and immediately the spinning begins. First a web is spun 

 and within this the cocoon itself is formed, a process requiring 

 only about seventy-two hours. In order that as many as possi- 

 ble may witness this spinning the exhibit has been so planned 

 that one set of worms succeeds another, thus extending the co- 

 coon making over several weeks. 



Four or five days after the cocoons are completed the cater- 



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