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from this time continue feeding the silkworms with full- 

 grown leaves ; and their mouths, with which they saw 

 their food, is changed in color, originally white and soft, 

 but soon becoming hard and black, continually growing 

 harder with every successive change. 



Fourth Age. When they wake up in this age, the 

 silkworms are of a whitish flesh color, except the spot- 

 ted species, called tigres ; their head and body has be- 

 come enlarged, their appetite becomes voracious, and 

 they can now devour all the coarse leaves. 



Fifth Age. Their color has now become of a dark 

 gray with a reddish hue ; they continue, however, grow- 

 ing whiter for about seven days, when they generally 

 become of a yellow color, their backs becoming shining 

 arid their mouths of a red color. 



A great quantity of food is now needed, and the 

 branches must be brought by wagon loads and distrib- 

 uted to them. It is curious to see the incredible quan- 

 tities of full-grown leaves that they devour at present ; 

 even the coarsest leaves are equally valuable, and night 

 and day they must be fully fed. Their time now being 

 short, must be improved continually and to the utmost, 

 for now they hunger incessantly, and the more they eat 

 and the faster they feed the more abundant will be the 

 produce of silk. If you find that your heaps of 

 branches are too high, like coming eight or ten inches 

 from the shelf above, you take the whole top with all 

 the worms on ; see that you hold it up carefully, so as not 

 to hurt the worms, during which time another person 

 takes off all the branches from beneath, and sweeps 





