The eggs, while containing the embryo silk-worm, have a dull lavender color, but after discharging the worm they resembled little sugar pills. The worms were about one-sixteenth of an inch long, but the first week of moulting shows them to be half an inch long and the second week one inch. For the third moulting they are placed on perforated paper, through the holes of which the worms crawl. This relieves the attendant of considerable labor in transferring them. The fourth week the head is white, and the worm has attained its normal growth. There is nothing now for the worm to do but leaf around and lunch on mulberry leaves until the eighth or ninth day after shedding its skin the fourth time, when he or she, as the case may be, proceeds to form its cocoon. It is then of a golden transparent color. It takes about five days for the industrious worm to finish its cocoon. Then, to destroy the moth inside, it is subjected to heat, and the cocoon is then ready for spinning.
When ready for use the cocoons are soaked in a tub of water until all the glutinous substance is removed. With a small whisk-broom the cocoon is brushed until ends, which are as fine as a cobweb, come loose. They will then reel off without breaking. One cocoon will give four hundred yards of raw silk.
Indian rubber trees are also easily cultivated in Mexico, and the demand for them is large. It's easy to make a comfortable income in Mexico, if one goes about it rightly.
[CHAPTER XXXIV.]
LITTLE NOTES OF INTEREST.
Superstition is the ruin of Mexico. While we were there some children found a shell containing an image of the Virgin. The matter was deemed miraculous, and they directly decided to build a chapel on the spot where the shell was found.
In the State of Morelos exists a stone that they say was used before the conquest to call the people to labor or to war. The stone appears to be hewn, in the center of the upper part is a hole which runs into the heart of the stone, forming a spiral. On fitting to this a mouthpiece and blowing, the sound of a horn is produced, somewhat melancholy in tone, but so loud that it can be heard a great distance; the ranchmen of that locality employ it as a means of calling their flocks and the animals quickly obey the summons. It is known as the "Calling Stone."
There is a tradition about this stone; they say that no difference where it is taken, that by some invisible means it always goes back to the spot it has occupied for the past century. They say that once it was even chained in a cellar, but in the morning it was missing, and when they searched for it, it was found in its old position.
Mexico abounds with the most beautiful and wonderful flowers. Many are unknown even to horticulturists. One of the novel flowers I heard of was one which grew on the San Jose hacienda, some twenty-two leagues from the City of Tehuantepec. In the morning it is white, at noon it is red, and at night it is blue. At noon it has a beautiful perfume, but at no other time. It grows on a tree.