THE GUIDE TO NATURE 
58 
The Spinning Worm. 
BY CHARLES NEVERS HOLMES, NEWTON, MASS. 
The greatest spinners upon earth are 
the silkworms. The number of eggs 
laid by the female moth amount to five 
hundred or more, and these eggs hatch 
out into worms which begin to spin 
their cocoons when about six weeks 
old. It takes the worm about three or 
four days to complete its cocoon, first 
with an outer network and then with a 
duce 60.000.000 pounds of silk, it is 
necessary that 266,000.000.000 silk- 
worms die in constructing 266.000,000.- 
000 cocoons. If the manufacturers ob- 
tain from each cocoon a silk thread nine 
hundred feet in length, then they will 
produce from 266.000.000.000 cocoons 
a silk thread 45,000.000,000 miles long. 
However, our world’s silkworms spin 
in one year a much longer thread than 
that, because several of their threads 
are united in one thread to make the 
OUR WORLD'S SILK WORMS SPIfl YEARLY 
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THE WORK OF THE SILKWORM VIEWED ASTRONOMICALLY. 
continuous thread of blended strands. 
This silk thread of blended strands is 
produced by glands extending almost 
the length of the worm’s body and end- 
ing in openings in its mouth. As it 
spins, the worm shrinks in size, the 
completed cocoon being only about 
one and one-half inches long. 
After all life inside the cocoon has 
been destroyed by placing it in hot 
-water or in a heated oven, the ends of 
several of the silk threads are united, 
and the threads are then unwound from 
the rest of the cocoon. Only a small part 
of each cocoon can be used in produc- 
ing raw silk, about one-twelfth of the 
cocoon’s total weight. Nevertheless, 
in its three or four days of spinning, 
this industrious worm manufactures on 
an average three thousand feet of its 
own silk, a daily production of over 
seven hundred feet. 
Our world produces yearly about 60.- 
ooo.ooo pounds of raw silk. Now 
twelve pounds of cocoons make one 
pound of raw silk, and there are 370 
cocoons >n a pound. Therefore, to pro- 
commercial thread. And. since each 
silkworm’s thread averages three thou- 
sand feet, our world’s silkworms spin 
annually a thread approximating 150,- 
000.000.000 miles in length. 
Autumn Has Come. 
BY CLARA IRENE GOLDSTONE, NEW YORK CITY’. 
Autumn has come in robe of deep brown, 
With graceful sleeve flowing, 
A cup for leaves falling. 
Yellow her wand and golden her crown. 
Autumn has come to turn some leaves gold, 
And others to russet. 
And Yvith wond’rous sunset 
Paints azure skies with stroke swift and 
bold. 
Autumn has come, the time of the year 
When winds blow up briskly, 
When squirrels scamp frisk’ly, 
Begging for stores to cheer \\ inter’s drear. 
Autumn has come, together to link 
The warm breeze of Summer 
With cold winds of W inter. 
Bringing good cheer, whate’er you may 
think. 
