188 
THE ART OF REARING 
drop off, and to suspend the work they had 
begun *. 
* The common idea is, that any violent commotion in 
the air, either by the noise of thunder, or fire-arms, makes 
the worms drop off from the fagots. So the peasants much 
dread the effects of thunder, and if the silk-worms fail to 
rise, and thunder has been heard, they look upon it as the 
sole cause of the failure and loss. For the same reason 
they avoid making a noise, for fear of disturbing the silk- 
worms at their work. 
But if experience be consulted (says the author of the 
‘ Cours d' Agriculture,’ M. Rozier, in the article treating of 
silk-worms,) it will convince us that neither the sound of 
thunder, nor that of loud musketry, would make the silk- 
worms drop off, but they will continue to work as if in 
the stillest solitude. The following fact will confirm this. 
About thirty-five or forty years ago, at M. Thome's, a 
great cultivator of silk-worms, and one of the first who had 
written on the culture of mulberry trees and the rearing of 
silk-worms, we, in presence of several witnesses, fired se- 
veral pistol-shots in the midst of the laboratory itself, when 
the silk-worms were rising and high at work ; only one 
dropped off, and it was evident that it was a sick one that 
could not have formed a cocoon at any rate. And nobody 
can doubt the testimony of II. Sauvage, who tried the same 
experiment in his laboratory, without producing any effect on 
the silk-worms. The general idea is, then, contrary to ex- 
perience, and demonstrated to be ill-founded by undeniable 
facts. . The motion of the air, then, occasioned by the noise 
of thunder, is not injurious to the silk-worms that are spin- 
ning the cocoons, hut the lightning and sound indicate an 
accumulation of electricity in the atmosphere, which dis- 
charges itself from a cloud overladen with it, upon another 
cloud which has a less quantity of electricity, or none ; or in 
short, between the sky and the earth, until the electricity has 
found its equilibrium in the total mass. This equilibrium, 
however, cannot be regained without these slight insects 
