SILK-WORMS. 
207 
without inducing us to think that they differ in 
fecundating strength. 
The perfect health of the silk-worm depends 
not on the greater or less quantity of silky sub- 
stance which it can produce. A silk-worm may 
be strong and healthy, and yet contain less silk 
than a worm of a weaker appearance. 
I have found some sick silk-worms, that would 
not even have had strength to form a cocoon at all, 
if I had not assisted them, and were contracted 
and swelled, and are termed harpions , (or ricci- 
oni ) *. I have found in some of these more 
silky substance, than in many perfectly healthy 
worms that I opened for examination. (Chap. 
XII). 
The result of the experiments I made on some 
of my own cocoons, and on those of my tenants, 
that from a cocoon formed by a healthy silk- 
worm, there will always issue a very good moth, 
either male or female, and I admit no exceptions 
to this rule. 
When choosing cocoons for seed, some persons 
will shake them one after another, to find out 
whether the chrysalis rattles in the cocoon, which 
they consider a sign of a healthy chrysalis ; this 
* Of all the diseases of silk-worms described by Count 
Dandolo, the Riccione is the only one which is to be found 
described in the Cours d'Agriculture of L'Abbe Rozicr, 
under the name of Harp ion, or Passis. 
