SILK-WORMS. 
103 
be distributed in the same manner as before, as 
may be wanted, lightly and carefully scattered 
over the worms. 
This day the silk-worms sink into torpor, so 
that the next day they will have cast their skins 
and will be roused, and thus will the second age 
be accomplished. 
Let us now generalize this paragraph, and add 
our observations to the result. 
In the four days which the second age has 
lasted, the silk-worms, proceeding from five 
ounces of eggs, have consumed 90 pounds of 
picked leaves chopped small, including nine 
pounds of the young shoots of the mulberry ; 
adding to this about 15 pounds of refuse and 
pickings of the leaves, we shall have drawn about 
105 pounds’ weight from the tree, and given it in 
a proportion of 21 pounds to each ounce of silk- 
worms. 
The alterations which the silk-worm undergoes, 
besides that of the moulting in the second age, 
are as follows : — 
Their colour is become of a light grey, the 
hair is hardly to be perceived by the naked eye, 
and is become shorter ; the muzzle, which in the 
first age was very black, hard, and scaly, be- 
came immediately, upon moulting, white and 
soft, but afterwards again grew black, shining, 
and shelly, as before. 
