

WILD SJLK WORMS. 185 



cleared from their skin, they indemnify themselves with 

 usury, for the diet of the preceding day. It is then that 

 they can almost be seen to grow. These small worms en- 

 tirely lose the love of social life after their first moulting ; 

 the taste for solitude gains upon them, arid they separate to 

 go and live in their way, remote from one another. This 

 new inclination is mutually advantageous; for, if they re- 

 mained assembled together in community upon a single 

 branch, they would soon consume all the leaves, besides, 

 the tree would suffer from it, they would have a journey to 

 make to gain another branch, and the fast, which would be 

 inevitable, would retard their moulting, or even abridge 

 their lives, which are so short. Their dispersion is yet more 

 necessary for their preservation ; for if their enemies found 

 them thus re-united, they would make a more terrible de- 

 struction, and, perhaps, none would be able to escape. 

 Hornets, wasps, ants, ravens, and all small birds without 

 exception, are eager for their blood. The admirers of Pro- 

 vidence may well exclaim, in considering how these cater- 

 pillars, without defence and exposed to so many dangers, 

 have been able to preserve and perpetuate themselves, from 

 the beginning of the world, in the midst of so many ene- 

 mies ; a miracle so much the more striking, because, before 

 their silk obtained for them the care of men, the greater 

 part of them must perish at the period of hatching in years 

 unfavorable to their propagation. The following method 

 has been invented to defend them from the birds : the heads 

 of thefagara or ash trees, on which they put them, must 

 be rounded and covered with a net of meshes, close toge- 

 ther, to prevent the birds from getting to them. It is an 

 expense, but it is necessary ; and one is well remunerated 

 by the silk which is gathered. The hornets fall upon them 

 above all, when they are small, cut them in two and devour 

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