CHINESE MODE OF REARING SILKWORMS. 137 
are extremely subject, owing to the dry and hot 
nature of the climate. This is effected by getting 
the moths to deposit their eggs on large sheets of 
paper, which are taken immediately after being 
extruded, and hung upon a beam of one of the 
rooms, while the windows are all thrown open, to 
expose them to the free circulation of the air. They 
are taken down, rolled up, with the eggs inside, 
and each separate sheet of paper is hung up for the 
summer and autumn. Towards the close of the 
season they are again taken down, and subjected to 
an immersion in cold water, in which a small 
quantity of salt has been dissolved. Here they are 
left two days, when they are taken out, dried, and 
rolled up more tightly than before, and each sheet 
of paper put into a distinct earthen pot. Some are 
in the habit of using a ley composed of the ashes of 
mulberry-trees, and subject the eggs to the cooling 
influence of snow water, or expose them on trees to 
snow and rain. 
The object of all this is to prevent the exclusion 
of the caterpillar, till the leaves of the mulberry- 
tree have expanded. No sooner is this the case 
than the rolls of paper are taken from the vessels, 
and hung up in the sun’s rays, the eggs being 
turned from them, but which are, however, trans- 
mitted to them through the paper. Every night the 
sheets of paper are rolled up, and deposited in a 
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