Silk Manufacture. 155 



sudden report, as of fire arms or thunder, will cause them to fall 

 from their arbors. The peasants in Italy who attend on silkworms 

 are so strongly of this opinion, that if the caterpillars omit to rise 

 and spin after thunder has been heard, they consider its noise as 

 the sole reason of the failure; they are always desirous of remov- 

 ing every cause for noise from about the estabhshment. This 

 opinion appears, however, to be badly founded, and has been sat- 

 isfactorily refuted by persons who have made experiments to as- 

 certain the fact. Silkworms have been reared in all the bustle of 

 a town, exposed to the barking of dogs, and to concerts of music, 

 without in any way exhibiting signs of being affected by the noise. 

 The following statement is conclusive. It is taken from the 

 *' Cours d'Agriculture," written by Monsieur Rozier, and recounts 

 an experiment performed in the establishment of Monsieur Thome, 

 a considerable silk cultivator, and one of the earliest writers on 

 the subject. These gentlemen, Messrs. Rozier and Thome, in 

 the presence of many witnesses, fired several pistol shots in the 

 apartment where silkworms were either spinning, or rising pre- 

 paratory to their labor; and the only worm that dropped was evi- 

 dently a sickly insect, that could not have formed its cocoon un- 

 der any circumstances! 



' It is seldom that any opinion upon a point of practice is en- 

 tertained, without some ground for its existence. The Itahan 

 peasants, although certainly wrong in attributing any evil effects 

 to the agency of noise, might have been correct had they ascrib- 

 ed the evil to that great accumulation of electricity in the atmos- 

 phere which attends the discharge of the fluid, from one cloud 

 which is overcharged upon another which is deficient; or which 

 accompanies the fluid in its passage between the clouds and the 

 earth, until an equilibrium establishes itself in the mass. " Be- 

 fore this equilibrium is gained, however," says Monsieur Rozier, 

 " we know that many persons exhibit symptoms of strong excite 

 ment, falling into convulsions, or even being affected by fever. 

 Is it, then, surprising, that insects charged with a matter so high- 

 ly electric as silk should become oppressed or overpowered by 

 the superaddition of that Avhich they receive from the atmosphere.'' " 

 The peasants in the silk provinces of France have long been ac- 

 customed to place pieces of iron in the neighborhood of the in- 

 sects. If asked to assign their motive for this, their reply is, that 

 their fathers and grandfathers did so before them, and that there- 

 fore the practice must be desirable. May we not imagine that 

 this custom had its rise from the remarks of some philosophic ob- 

 server of the laws of nature, and who, under other and more fa- 



