All the mulberry trees in the plantation, with the exception of some six or a dozen, present the lamentable spectacle of so many boughless stems; whilst nature around is profuse in luxuriance, and the wild convolvolus, as though compassionating the sad condition of the mulberry, twists its friendly leaves around, and decks it with gaudy blossoms of the early May morning. The peasant has been busy cutting down boughs of trees, etc., the bark of which he makes into string and ropes; these have been exposed to the sun, till all the leaves have withered and fallen to the ground. The worm which, by a wonderful instinct, has heretofore never strayed seven inches from where it was originally placed, now begins to evince symptoms of impatience, and roves about the edges of the shelves, or tries to mount up the smooth and slippery canes that support the shelves. The peasant, marking these indications, immediately places the dry twigs of thorn and bushes over the worms, and in a short time the whole colony rapidly mounts amongst these twigs, each choosing out for itself some favourable position, where it may with greater facility weave its costly and wonderful web. And now we stand quietly, and watch the indefatigable little creature silently persevering in completing its own little storehouse, and what will prove to be its own little tomb. No machinery could be more exact than the movements of this small insect, as it carefully draws out of its mouth thread after thread, now moving with its head to the right, and carrying the almost invisible web down to its tail, then turning its head in the opposite direction, apparently for the purpose of drawing the silk from where it had been fastened on one side, till it has carefully drawn it over its own head, and secured it with gummy saliva. We quit the worms at mid-day, when hardly a thread of this wonderful substance is as yet visible; we return early the next day, and the cocoon is formed, but it is yet too tender to be touched. The peasant merely contents himself with observing the shape and color of these cocoons—setting much store on such as are of a yellow brown tinge, small, with a belt in the centre. Some of the cocoons are as white as snow, some yellow, some brown. The peasant now reports the condition of the silk-worms to his masters who immediately places his seal on the door of the hoosse.