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COCOONS OF PURE SILK. 
mulberry leaves with sugar. The silkworms that 
fed upon the sugared leaves recovered; or if they 
were not ill, escaped the disease altogether. 
The silkworm, reared in Europe, is only one of 
a numerous family, that spin silken cocoons in 
different parts of the world, and of these you 
may like to know something. 
In Bengal, at a certain season of the year, the 
natives of the hill country go wandering into the 
tangled mazes of the jungle. They are looking 
for silkworms, that feed upon the leaf of a tree, 
called the byer-tree; and as soon as they espy 
any traces of them, they cut off the branch with 
the young brood upon it. When they have 
collected a great many of these branches, they 
carry them home, and place them among the 
foliage of the asseen trees, which the silkworms 
like quite as w T ell as the byer-trees. And so 
precious are the tiny worms, for the sake of what 
they will spin, that the natives never lose sight 
of them, but watch night and day, lest the 
bats or the birds should devour them. 
In a month’s time the worms attain their full 
size, and are so heavy that they cannot crawl the 
right way, or with their backs upwards, but 
hang by their feet to the underside of the twig. 
When they are preparing to spin, they fasten 
two orthree leaves of the tree together so as to 
