FAMOUS SPINNERS 
“ You know,” Auntie observed, as she deftly 
hemmed Mabel’s new silk dress with dainty, even 
stitches, “ when we first began to talk about Na¬ 
ture’s craftsmen, it was remarked that man could 
make almost anything in the way of machinery, 
and could manufacture almost anything he 
pleased; and yet there is one thing he cannot do. 
No human being can make a single yard of nat¬ 
ural silk. To be sure, some manufacturers have 
succeeded in turning out very good imitations, 
but their silk is much thicker and heavier than the 
real article. 
“It is to the skill of the silkworm or, strictly 
speaking, to the silk caterpillar that we are in¬ 
debted for real silk. The Chinese who discovered 
the usefulness of these remarkable little creatures, 
more than four thousand years ago, are to blame 
for the misnomer. The industrious little silk¬ 
worm is not a worm at all. It is a child of the 
Eombyx moth, and hence must of necessity be a 
caterpillar. For a caterpillar by and by passes 
into winged life; a worm does not. But it is too 
late now to change the name, however wrongly 
109 
