even Anglomania is defective sometimes; the patient's guessing power has been known to fail him in the very midst of a sentence, thus causing a classical aposiopesis, e.g., Sororem tuam æstate reversuram esse non verisimile est, sorrow in summer is like your One cause of mistake is sheer confusion between two words which are somewhat alike. An extreme case is given in the statement, "Tenus governs a dative;" for instance, tene illi homini, "hold that man. This might be a necessary precaution in case the man should take to flying into the council," which was given as the English of fugiendi consilium capere. Such an aeronaut might be able to "journey toward the sun;" this marvel was attributed to a creature of whom the poet only says ingreditur solo. Of some people it is asserted that "they can because they can see;" the original says possunt quia posse videntur. One boy expressly stated what he could see; see Charles the Second king." This did not appear likely: it afterward transpired, as the papers say, that he was translating an inscription connected with a religious and ancient foundation, stating it to be auspicio Caroli Secundi regis; perhaps he was the king whose reason all men studied. hungry boy stated this object of ambition to be "a large flat thing that you broil upon;" he was apparently thinking of "gridiron. Another boy must have been in the pangs of hunger who wrote in answer to the question "What makes the tower of Pisa lean?" "Because there was a sore famine in that land." The Biblical form of this answer reminds one that on a class being asked to quote from the Bible for the use of the verb "hale" meaning to draw, one boy promptly said "Hail, King of the Jews!" Among sentences which were to be corrected in a certain paper, occurred Qui leges paret is patriæ juvat. One young scholar, either because he thought the passage perfect or hopelessly corrupt, chose to translate it instead, "who brings forth laws orders his native country;" this statement, like some others, lacks lucidity, but it contains one word which is dear to all boys who love their dictionary, namely "native country." For this country it behoves us (to use another favorite) to fight well. It is true that Máxouat means "I fight," and that peap means "a well," but he who represented "to fight well" by μáxeobaι peap was literal rather than idiomatic; indeed, he might be charged with what a translator of Thucydides charged a distinguished predecessor in that field, namely The mention of royalty recalls an unfortunate association of words which turned a benevolent aspira-hideous fidelity." tion into something like a malignant imprecation: Passages for what is facetiously called "unseen translation" present so many difficulties to young boys "Oh might I live to see thee grace that it may be desirable to give, for In Scotland Yard thy birthright place!" their benefit, a verbatim report of A person spurred on by the "last one performance which is striking infirmity" whereof we have heard, in its tenacity of purpose and audachopes to find a "fair guerdon;" aity of imagination; even Humpty Dumpty could not order about words | So said the fat bailiff's wife, as she in more imperious fashion. "Cæsar bustled about with her silk-worm Cæsar, viderit was seen, cum with, eggs, all neatly done up in little bags. suos complures his forces, ex out of, Last year the silk-worms were most omnibus partibus all the parts, vul- successful, so we determined to try nerari he was wishing, ascendere to and reproduce a small quantity of ascend, montem the mountain, ex the same, against the advice of all but, cohortes the cohorts, oppidi knowing folk. Since the malady of were opposed, et simulatione very the worms, which ruined so many likely" (another boy translates this people in Italy, a perfectly healthy word by "at the same time"), "ma- breed has been sought for in vain. nium occupandorum by those who Eggs have been, and are still, imoccupied it, jubet he orders them, ported from Japan at an enormons tollere to raise, clamorem a shout, expense; but though healthy, their undique from all sides. Quo facto silk is so inferior to the native stock, by whom having made, oppidani that half a crop of good rose-colored perterriti an opportunity for going Italian silk pays better than a whole through" (these latter words are one of the light-colored greenishthought by others to mean "he yellow Japanese. Add to this that perished on the opposite side," or the latter make much smaller and through the frightened towns- lighter cocoons, and my readers will men,") cum with, quid those, in understand how every effort is made locis in these places, essent they to procure healthy native worms. were, reliquis left, suspensi in sus- The Cortona breed is now supposed pense, ageretur of change, revocant to be the best and freest from dishe calls together, ab impugnandis for ease, and as much as forty francs is fighting, operibus armatos the ar- paid for an ounce of eggs. mies, disponunt they were placed, murisque from the walls. Ita thus, nostri prælii our battles, facta are done, opera the works, celeriter are running away, flamma comprehensa the inflammable comprehensity, partim a part, restinguunt is resting, partim a part, interscindunt being done away with." Let us like the Let us like the "part" rest also.-CLAUDITE JAM RIVOS, PUERI.-The Cornhill Magazine. 76 SILK-WORM RAISING. "Who wishes to have good silkworms, must put the eggs to hatch on Saint Mark's Day" (April 25th). Three years ago we tried some from Turkestan, which produced most enormous silkworms and promised well until they were as big as one's middle finger, when the creatures all got ill in a single night and. to our intense disappointment, had to be thrown away, after eating a quantity of mulberry leaves and taking up our time for five weeks. The following year we tried a breed from South Carolina which did very well for one year, but failed utterly the next. Then we had various kinds of eggs from Australia, but they did not hatch out, owing, I believe, to having been kept in ice and frozen on the voyage, as the empty cocoons shown as samples were very fine. So we resigned our selves to paying a high price for good Cortona eggs, and trying a small quantity of our own reproduction of the same breed. We chose five hundred of the finest cocoons. The males are known by being smaller than the females, and having an indentation or ring round the middle. The cocoons were strung on coarse thread in festoons, and kept in a quiet and cool room until the fat, unwieldy, fluffy moths came out. These were carefully examined, and those with illformed wings, or with brown or yellow spots upon them, were thrown away. Square pieces of linen are pinned on to large cane trays leaned against the wall, and the moths are put upon these. As soon as the female begins to lay her eggs the male is destroyed, as he flutters about and disturbs her, preventing her from laying the eggs close one to another, and causing her to scatter them, and to interfere with the other moths. The female dies soon after she has finished laying: they live but from four to eight days-a short life, and not a very merry one, as their bodies are so heavy that they can hardly fly half the length of a room. The cocoons from which the moths emerge are of small value, as they eat a hole in one end, biting through every twist of the silk, so that it cannot be reeled, and is only used for fiore-that is, the stuffing of ribbed silk, or for making inferior damask and floss. After remaining spread out in the room for several days, the pieces of linen, with the eggs firmly attached as though they had been glued on, are folded up loosely and put into the cellar, if it is a dry one, or else kept in a cool room to the north, on! a slab of marble, lest the hot weather should bring them prematurely to life. Then the linen is well soaked in a basin of red wine, and the eggs delicately scraped off with a knife. Considerable care is required not to injure them in any way during this process; and red wine is used in preference to water, as they say it strengthens the eggs. We had five ounces of our own reproduction, and the bailiff had bought ten ounces of finest. Cortona at forty francs an ounce, and fifteen ounces at twenty francs. At this villa the old custom is still kept up of hatching out the eggs, and giving the silk-worms, when about ten days old, to the country-women, who come dressed in their best, with a new flat wicker-basket and a clean towel to cover up the tiny worms and protect them from the wind. A sunny warm day is always chosen for this, and many are the wishes and hopes for the future well-being of the silkworms, as on them depend the goodwife's new dress, some new linen for the house, or a string of small pearls," coveted and necessary ornament of every well-to-do Tuscan peasant woman. The silk-worms and the chickens are entirely women's work and women's gain here, though the men pick the mulberry leaves and carry them home. As the mezzeria or metayer system prevails all over Tuscany, half of the silk produced goes to the landlord, to whom the mulberry trees belong, and who finds half the cost of the eggs, the peasants giving their labor; and hard work the six weeks of silk-worm culture is: as a pretty black-eyed Assunta said to me, "Ah, Signora, who has silkworms cannot sleep.' After the division of eggs has been made, according to the mulberrytrees on the farm and the number of women in the family, the eggs are placed in the hatching machine, a square wooden box on four legs, with glass sides and three tiers of net-work made with string, on which are placed small square boxes, each holding one ounce of eggs, and made of muslin with wooden sides. The hatching machine has a double bottom, the top one of zinc, a little hollowed so as to hold water: a small lamp is placed in the lower one, and the heat is regulated by various slides and openings in the top of the machine, being gradually increased to one hundred and five degrees. In about forty hours the worms ought to come out; and the eggs having been covered with square bits of coarse tulle, on which are placed young tender leaves of the mulberry, the tiny black creatures come up through the holes of the tulle, leaving their empty shells below, and instantly begin to eat. As each leaf is covered with worms it is removed from the machine and laid on white paper in a basket in the warm room, care being taken to have separate baskets for each family, or one could not be sure of giving them their proper number of ounces. The silk-worms are generally born in batches, with an interval of six or eight hours between each batch. This is also carefully noted on slips of paper prima nascita, seconda nascita, terza nascita (first hatching, second hatching, third hatching) as it makes an ever-increasing difference in their four sleeps and a considerable one in the time they begin to spin, sometimes of a week. After the third batch the eggs may as well be thrown away, as little further good will come of them. Great cleanliness is necessary to keep the silk-worms in good health. For this, small pieces of coarse net are used, cut to the size of the baskets, and every morning a piece is laid on the top of the worms; fresh young leaves sliced fine are strewn on the net, and the worms come up through the holes to find their food, when the piece of net is lifted up, the basket cleaned out, dry paper laid in, and the net with the worms on it returned to the basket. After eight days they go to sleep for twenty hours, during which time care is taken not to disturb them, and no food given until they are quite lively and have changed their skins. They grow visibly after having thrown off their old jackets, and come out lighter colored and very soft-looking. The heat of the room is now diminished, as in a day or two the peasants will come for their worms, and those of the villa will have to be changed into other rooms, ten of which are devoted to the silk-worms in spring and to the storage of beans and maize in autumn and winter. We now busied ourselves with getting ready the castelli and stoje. A castello consists of four upright square pillars of wood, about six feet high, standing on square feet. Holes are punched through them all the way up at about eight inches apart, and in these holes are fitted pegs of wood supporting two poles. On these poles are placed the stoje, oblong trays or mats, made of canes bound together with reeds. They are seven feet long by five feet wide, and if the silk-worms succeed well stoje, or trays of worms when they are full grown. one ounce of eggs will give twelve | This process is continued until the worms have slept three times, when they are big enough to use nets. These are made exactly the size of the stoje, with a cane fixed to each end, so that two women can raise the net while the others change the stoje underneath. As soon as the nets are used paper is no longer put on the stoje, as the worms need all the air they can get: they are already an inch long, and too large to fall through the openings between the Eight days after their first sleep the worms again sleep for twentyfour hours, and change their skins for the second time. They evidently suffer at each change of skin, and some worms are always lost. The weakly ones do not live through the process, and either linger on for a few days with a glistening hard skin which is too small for them and turns a sort of rusty yellow color, or else die in the effort of stripping it off. The change is very curious to watch. Waking up from his long sleep the worm moves his head about in a foolish, aimless manner, as though he were dazed and not sure of his own identity. He then proceeds to rub his mouth against the stem of the leaf, or anything else handy, and works with his two front legs at the covering or sheath of his eyes and head, which comes off in one piece. Then he rests and looks about him to survey the world out of his uncovered eyes. After a time he fixes his feet firmly and begins to wriggle his body, when gradually the old skin wrinkles and he slowly creeps out and leaves it like an empty bag behind; and now thoroughly exhausted, he lies stretched out at full length without moving for half an hour or more. After the second sleep the worms, now about half an inch long, are put on the stoje, covered with large sheets of paper to prevent them from falling through between the canes. Fresh sheets are spread over them every morning, with holes cut in them and strewn with fresh mulberry leaves; and every morning the old stoje are replaced by clean ones. canes. The work now becomes hard, as the silk-worms eat voraciously and must be fed every four hours, night and day. The critical time is the fourth and last sleep, the big one, as they call it. The worms sleep thirtysix hours and then come out very large, very hungry, and very susceptible to atmospheric changes. A thunder-storm may kill them all: a north wind stops their eating, and prevents them from spinning, which ought to take place about eight days after their last sleep. During this period several men are employed in making scope, loose fan-shaped fagots of long heather, to put the worms upon to spin their cocoons. Any one at all used to silk-worms cans directly they want to begin. to sin; as they become semi-transparent, and move about restlessly ithout eating. The women now never leave them by day, and put loose branches of heather on the stoje by night, or the worms would make their cocoons among the leaves. The worms which are assetata, or ready to spin," are collected on plates and transferred to the scope, which are leaned against chairs, or against a pole put across the corner of the room. As fast as these are |