A Characteristic Head-Dress Of Lake Como.

Nesso.

San Giovanni.

A Mulberry Tree.

Four or five times a day this food is furnished them, and the amount devoured seems incredible. The crunching murmur of their mastication is distinctly audible, and sounds like the fine crackling of a flame through paper, when first kindled, or like the gentle fall of rain on grass or flowers. For nearly a month these insects eat incessantly, day and night, except when they make four remarkable pauses, lasting two days each. During those periods of rest, in which all noise must be avoided, they seem to sleep, and on each such occasion shed their skins! Then, having acquired new ones, they begin to eat again with added vigor and unflagging appetite. To watch their fierce voracity, one would suppose their lives depended on the amount consumed. At last, however, a day arrives when they are sated, and can eat no more. By that time they have attained a length of three and a half inches and the thickness of a good-sized pencil. And now this chapter of their existence ends. A silken thread appears within their mouths, which they perforce must spin, - a thread which guides them through the labyrinthine mysteries of instinct to the next step in their evolution. In anticipation of this singular event, the ever vigilant attendants have already built, behind the shelves on which the silkworms feed, a miniature grove of twigs and branches, called a bosco. Into this tiny wood the silkworms voluntarily crawl, as chickens go to roost in trees. Then each proceeds to lash its body to some twig with self-spun threads, and, when secure of its position, weaves about itself for five or six days a golden-hued cocoon, about the size of a pigeon's egg. In the economy of nature, if not prevented by the hand of man, there would emerge in three weeks' time from every yellow envelope a four-winged butterfly. But in this case each silken shroud is a sarcophagus. At the right moment the assistants put to death the slumbering chrysalis, by placing the cocoons in hot-air ovens; for, should the butterfly be allowed to pierce its golden cloak and force an exit, the silk would be unfit for reeling. The cocoons, made thus lifeless, are then laid in water, heated almost to the boiling point, to soften the gelatinous substance which surrounds them; and while they float thus half submerged their silken threads are reeled off with the greatest care, the delicate work being usually entrusted only to the hands of women. In fact, the filaments are so fine, that four of them at least are wound together, to form a strand sufficiently firm to admit of handling. Even then, when the revolving reel is rapidly turned, it is extremely difficult to distinguish any thread at all. A single fibre is often eleven hundred feet in length, and it requires the product of some sixteen hundred worms to make one pound of silk. What most impressed me in this sericulture was the marvelous way in which the irresistible instincts of the insect have been utilized for the wants of man. There seems a sort of treachery on his part in leading these poor creatures on to carry out so perfectly a portion only of the plan of their development, intending all the time to rob them ultimately of their life, and check the entire aim of their existence, as arranged in nature's laboratory. Hence, though perhaps we feel ashamed of entertaining pity for the silkworm, we may be glad at least that it knows nothing of the winged life, of which it is deprived. Whenever I behold the slender, golden threads reeled from the dainty tabernacle of the lifeless chrysalis, a kind of apprehension seizes me-a dread lest silkworms may not be the only beings on our planet doomed to toil blindly toward a hoped-for goal which they shall never reach. How tragic would it be - could it be true-if we who struggle on, inspired by dreams of immortality, were to be finally thwarted by some master mind, that deemed it best to disappoint our sweet delusion, and let no further life evolve from the pale shrouds which hold at last our earthly forms!

Costumes Of The Country.

Out On The Heights.