T84 TREATISE UPON THE 



Nature has taught the small worms to gain quickly the 

 leaves of the tree which are to nourish them, and to unite 

 themselves in the same neighborhood on different leaves, so 

 as to form there a body, and alarm their enemies by their 

 numbers. They even take care to lodge themselves upon 

 the under surface of the leaves, where they attach them- 

 selves wonderfully, and where it is more difficult to attack 

 them. Hardly are they dried and accustomed to the in- 

 fluence of the air, than they eat with a good appetite, and 

 attack the fagara and oak leaves by the edges, help them- 

 selves, and feed without scarcely reposing. " It happened 

 in the first day that I had carried my newly hatched worms 

 to the tree," says P. D'Incarville, " a great rain suddenly 

 came on, which made me very uneasy for their lives. I 

 thought it was all over with them, and that not one would 

 have resisted the torrents of water which fell. As soon as 

 the storm had passed, I went to see if there was one to be 

 found. I found them eating with great appetite, and grown 

 sensibly larger." Far from the rain being injurious to them, 

 it benefits them by the coolness it produces in the air, and by 

 dispersing all their enemies. They suffer, moreover, from 

 dryness, because the leaves they feed upon being then less 

 abundant in juice, they become constipated. Their delicacy 

 and neatness, if they have any, is not against their health. 

 If they void their small feces with difficulty, they bend them- 

 selves without ceremony on their backs, draw them with 

 their teeth, and drop them ; which is done in the twink- 

 ling of an eye : then they begin to eat again. The food 

 profits them so much in the beginning, that they grow and 

 increase from day to day nearly half their size. 



The wild silk worms moult four times, and each moult- 

 ing is but four days distant from the preceding. The third 

 day they eat little ; but the fourth day, when they are hardly 



