24O THE INSECT WORLD. 



Let us suppose that it is wished now to make up a brin, or staple, 

 by uniting together the ends of five cocoons. She chooses five ends 

 in the mass, makes of these a bundle, and introduces it into the hole 

 of zjilierc. She makes two staples (brins) at once, one on her right, 

 the other on her left hand. She then brings them together, she 

 crosses them, rolls them, and twists them, the one on the other, 

 several times ; after which, she separates them from above and keeps 

 them well apart, making each of them pass into a hook at a distance, 

 from which they are going to twist round into a hank, separately, on 

 a wheel. The two threads thus twisted are drawn close together, 

 compressed, and become one, getting round by rolling on each other, 

 and being kept in continual motion, drawn out as they are by the 

 rapid motion of the wheel. 



The difficulty which the emptying the cocoon of its silk thread 

 presents, makes us understand what difficulties those manufacturers 

 must have met with who have lately attempted to extract from the 

 stalks of mulberry leaves a sort of silk. We will enter into no 

 details of the attempts which have been made to accomplish this 

 object in our time, attempts which have, however, been crowned with 

 no success whatever. We will confine ourselves to reminding the 

 reader that these attempts are far from being of recent origination, 

 since they date back to as far as Olivier de Serres, the father of 

 French sericulture. 



In a little work published by Olivier de Serres, in 1603, under 

 the title of Cucillctte de la Sole, " The Gathering of Silk," we find a 

 memoir entitled : La second ricJiesse du mfirier, qui se trouve en son 

 escorce, pour en faire des toiles de touts sortc, non mains utilc que la sole 

 provcnant d'icelui, " The second wealth of the mulberry tree which is 

 found in its bark, how to make of it cloth of all sorts, not less useful 

 than the silk derived from this tree." Olivier de Serres proves in this 

 memoir that the second bark, or liber, of the mulberry tree contains 

 a fibre capable of replacing hemp or flax, and he describes the 

 processes by which this may be obtained. The processes which had 

 been proposed by Olivier de Serres in 1603, were resumed in the 

 Cevennes a dozen years ago by M. Duponchel on the one hand, 

 and on the other by M. Cabanis,* who operated on the bark instead of 

 taking the whole of the wood of the mulberry tree. But none of 

 these attempts have given any good results up to the present moment. 



The various diseases which for the last fifteen years have been so 

 fatal to the mulberry silkworm, have suggested the idea of acclimatis- 



* See the " Annee scientifique," 7e annee, p. 432. 



