SILK-WORMS. 
63 
space they need until after their first moulting. 
The sheets of paper will be four times the size of 
the small boxes, and those four sheets of paper 
must bear the same number as the box ; and thus 
the worms will not want moving till their first 
moulting is passed. 
As fast as the silk-worms come forth, they 
should be moved in this manner *. 
* It is easy to imagine that it may often require more than 
three days even to bring’ forth the silk-worms from a given 
quantity of eggs. It will be seen in Chap. X. that the moths 
do not issue from the cocoons in less than ten days or a fort- 
night, according to the temperature to which they have been 
exposed ; and it is therefore evident there may be a differ- 
ence of ten days or a fortnight in the laying the eggs. As 
the eggs put to hatch are therefore not all laid the same day, 
and are liable to the same degree of heat in the stove-room, 
some must come out sooner than others 3 ; hence no one can 
say the late-hatched eggs can be either better or worse than 
the early eggs, because the embryo has required longer to 
perfect itself into the worm ; this period is always propor- 
tioned to the constitution of the eggs. These reflections 
should satisfy the small proprietor, who has but one box of 
a It does not appear this should be exact evidence, that be- 
cause the eggs are not all laid in one day, they cannot be 
hatched in one day. If we may argue by analogy, it is well 
known that hens hatch eggs laid at various periods in a short 
time. Housewives well know, when they choose eggs for setting, 
that, provided they be good eggs, their having been laid at dif- 
ferent times is of no consequence. It would appear, that it is 
not because the eggs of the silk-worms have been laid sooner, 
or later, that they do not hatch at one time ; but, more pro- 
bably, that this difference proceeds from the peculiar quality of 
the egg, and of the care taken to surround it constantly with the 
degree of heat it may individually require. 
