TET ANIMALS. 361 



bad job, and as they couldn't creep back again into their eggs, why 

 they died, and were done for. Then there was a Miss Rhodes, who had 

 thirty thousand silkworms, and who calculated that they would pro- 

 duce her about five pounds of silk, and who was we quote her very 

 words " determined not to relinquish her design until she had 

 obtained the quantity of silk necessary for a dress ;" but such a 

 cold July set in about the time her worms were ready to spin that, 

 like Cardinal Wolsey in Shakspere's " Henry the Eighth," she was 

 ready to exclaim as she looked at her mulberry trees: 



" To-day they put forth 



The tender leaves of hope ; to-morrow, blossom, 

 And bear their budding honours thick upon them ; 

 The third day comes a frost, a killing frost, 

 And when 1 think, ' Good mulberry trees/ full surely 

 ' Their leaves are now all brandling' nips their roots, 

 And then they fall as I do." 



She tells us that " her distress increased hourly," and her thirty 

 thousand decreased to some five thousand; but whether in after 

 years, by hoarding up, she obtained silk enough for a dress from 

 future generations of silkworms the world will never know, as she- 

 long since went the same road as her silkworms. 



So far we have given you all we know about the silkworm in 

 England. Something we might say about the Emperors of China 

 and what they did for silkworms about the time when our Saxon 

 king Edgar was making laws for the destruction of wolves in Eng- 

 land, but we don't think you would be a bit wiser for the information, 

 for it's all "hear-say" after all, and " hear-say," when above a thou- 

 sand years old, isn't worth the parings of a midge's toe-nail. 



Silkworms' eggs may be 

 purchased very reasonably at 

 many places, one of which is 

 Covent- garden market; and 

 after a stock is once laid in, 

 they may be preserved till 

 the following year, if care is 

 taken to keep them in a dry 

 drawer or box during the 

 winter months. When first 



laid, the eggs are of a pale yellow tint, but they soon change to an 

 ash colour. Towards the end of April, or early in May, just as it is 

 a forward or a backward spring, when the mulberry- tree puts forth its 

 leaves early or late, the eggs should be strewed or placed on the paper 

 on which they were laid by the moth, in small and rather shallow 

 trays, which ought to be made of good substantial cartridge-paper, 

 with the edges turned up to about the height of an inch all round, as 

 shown in the marginal illustration, and pasted neatly together at the 

 corners. These trays containing the eggs should be placed in a 

 window where the sun may shine full upon them, and if they can 

 receive the rays of the mid-day sun, so much the better. Par- 

 ticular care must be taken to place them out of the reach of cats 



