The gnats and other flying insects have indeed to take many chances when they slip from their cocoons and dance up and down in the warm sunlight!
A silk cloth made from the cocoons of a caterpillar other than the common silkworm, much used in Bengal and China.
Defn: An amorphous variety of manna obtained from the nests and cocoons of a Syrian coleopterous insect (Larinus maculatus, L.
The fine, soft thread produced by various species of caterpillars in forming the cocoons within which the worm is inclosed during the pupa state, especially that produced by the larvæ of Bombyx mori.
Land is very much dearer, and taxes are higher in the European silk districts than with us, and every little crop of cocoons has to pay its share, which adds a considerable percentage to its cost.
It is, therefore, clear that the object of the sericulturist should be to raise and market as good a crop of cocoons as possible to the best advantage, and with the least possible expense and risk.
Now, there is a considerable difference in price between well reeled and poorly reeled silk--a difference so great that silk not well reeled in every way is not worth as much as the cocoonsfrom which it is derived.
The profits made by raisers in Europe are not very great, and as they would be less in the United States, it is not worth while to try to raise cocoons in that country.
To use a rough comparison, I should esteem it as wasteful, even if possible, for each grower to attempt to reel his own cocoons as for each farmer to grind his own wheat upon his farm and endeavor to sell the flour.
In each of these cocoons there are from six to sixteen eggs.
One sees a good many sluggish caterpillars, however; and sharp eyes may begin to find cocoons hanging from the bushes, or tucked into crevices of bark, or plastered against rocks and the boards of old fences.
Search about among the heaped-up leaves beneath the bush, and you may find the cocoons of the great Polyphemus silkworm-moth and of that exquisite pale-green luna-moth which flits like a ghost to our lighted windows on summer nights.
Sooner or later, however, it dies; and then the little grubs spin cocoons and turn to chrysalids, out of which other little flies appear in due course, just like the parents.
Here among these bushes is a good place to look for cocoons of moths and butterflies.
So the mother bee has to store up sufficient to last them until the time comes for them to spin their cocoons and pass into the chrysalis state.
Obtain miscellaneous specimens of larvae, pupae, and cocoons of any moths or butterflies.
From the cocoons the winged adult ichneumons issue; and after mating the females find another caterpillar on whose body to lay their eggs.
The larval ichneumons pupate either within the body of its host, or in a tiny silken cocoons outside of its body (fig.
Larva of a sphinx-moth, with cocoons of a parasitic ichneumon fly.
Egg sacs and cocoonsshould be collected in pill boxes and properly labeled, and if possible the adults should be reared.
Such larvae will be found on the trunks of trees, in the crevices of the bark, and the cocoons of parasites will also be found in similar situations.
Without being absolutely undiscoverable, in my immediate neighbourhood the cocoons of the Great Peacock are at least extremely rare, as the trees on which they are found are not common.
These cocoons are inhabited only in winter, when the Gardener is indifferent to food, and lies torpid in the earth.
My cocoons were all hatched, and the problem was still obscure.
Yet there were some in the neighbourhood, for those with large antennæ which issued from my collection of cocoons were placed in the garden directly they had emerged, and were recognised.
But no one, that I know of, has ever found the Golden Gardener and its larva in the silken cocoons of the Bombyx.
Three years went by and by chance two more cocoons of the Monk or Oak Eggar again fell into my hands.
So far as is known, the production of cocoons is universal among earthworms and the remaining Oligochaeta of aquatic habit.
In these cocoons are deposited the eggs together with a certain amount of albumen upon which the developing embryos feed.
Like the leeches the earthworms produce cocoons which are a product of the glandular epithelium of the clitellum.
The larvae of this insect are covered with numerous minute spines, and may be often found in the nests; also the cocoons which they form when full grown, these latter being of a dark brown colour, and rather elongate.
When full-grown they descend to the ground and construct, on the under-side of fallen leaves, loose cocoons of silk and earth from which the perfect insects emerge in about a month's time.
The cocoons are put in a closed basket, and hung up in the house, out of reach of rats and insects.
Saturnia silhetica, which inhabits the cassia mountains in Silhet and Dacca, where its large cocoons are spun into silk.
The winder is attentive to this progressive attenuation, and introduces the commencement of some cocoons to compensate for the termination of others.
After four days the proper cocoons are selected for the next breed, and the rest are uncoiled.
The cocoons are completely formed in the course of three or four days; the finest being reserved as seed worms.
It has not hitherto been domesticated, but millions of its cocoons are annually collected in the jungles, and brought to the silk factories near Calcutta and Bhagelpur.
It is therefore necessary to extinguish the life of the animal by heat, which is done either by exposing the cocoons for a few days to sunshine, by placing them in a hot oven, or in the steam of boiling water.
The Italians employ frequently the cocoons of the silkworm for this purpose; these take a brilliant dye, preserve their colour, and possess a transparent velvety appearance, suitable for petals.
In Paraguay a spider is found which makes spherical cocoons of yellow silk, which are spun because of the permanence of the colour.
Les Dragees is the name given to cocoons which include a larva that never becomes a pupa.
And although they daily brought their own pupae out of the galleries, the smaller cocoons never more came to view, and the small ants subsequently abandoned their nest.
There was, however, very little resistance of this sort, and the pillage, if such it were, continued until the remaining cocoons had all been carried over into the nest of the large ants.
Upon the back of their emaciated host they proceeded to spin for themselves marvelous little cocoons of white silk which they did in a very brief time.
Then, and not until then, they swarmed over into the adjoining nest and began carrying the cocoons of the small ants back into their own nest.
The caterpillar now bristled with the small white cocoons which stood upon end on its back, where they were attached, and almost hid it from view.
And now, as we learned something about silkworms and their cocoons in our talks about insects[15], there is little more to be said of the mulberry tree which any but learned people would care to know.
I had about eighty cocoonsof another and larger race of Atlas imported from the Province of Kumaon, but only eight moths emerged at intervals from the 31st of July to the 30th of September.
These Kumaon Cynthia cocoons were somewhat smaller and much darker in color than those of the acclimatized Cynthia reared on the ailantus.
By taking this simple precaution, live cocoons and pupæ, when newly formed, can be safely sent from very distant countries of Europe.
This latter was one from a small number ofcocoons received from Alabama; the other cocoons of the same race had emerged at the same time as the cocoons from the Northern States.
The cocoons of Polyphemus I had in 1881 were smaller and inferior in quality to those I had before.
These cocoons were, as far as I can remember, of a yellowish or saffron color; which I had never seen before.
With about sixty cocoons of Telea polyphemus I only obtained three pairings, which I attribute solely to the weakness of the moths, as the weather was all that could be desired for the pairings.
In the course of several weeks I received a specimen, say about a skein, of the most beautiful silk I had ever beheld, with an order to forward the balance of the cocoons per Adams Express, which I did at the expense of one dollar.
The throwsters [those who pulled the silk fibers from the cocoons of the silk worms and twisted them together to make a thread] and the handkerchief weavers also became discontent.
The regulation of the Silk Throwers company restricting the number of spindles to be worked at one time is voided because it has taken livelihoods away and caused foreign thrown silk [silk twisted from cocoons into thread] to be imported.
The cocoons opened and Ben slipped on his work helmet and dropped down the steps to the side hatch.
The car speed dropped quickly to under a hundred and the cocoons were again retracted.
The safety cocoons snapped open and Clay jumped into his boots and leaped for the cab.
The cocoons were triggered automatically in any emergency run or chase at speeds in excess of two hundred miles an hour.
The bull horn blared as Beulah leaped past the two hundred mile an hour mark and safety cocoons slid into place.
The safety cocoons slammed shut almost on the first notes of the bull horn.
Once again the bull horn blared as the cocoons slammed shut, this time locking both Clay and Kelly into their bunks, sealing Ben into the control seat.
The momentary drops in speed unlocked the safety cocoons and in an instant, Clay had leaped from the shower stall and sped to the cab.
Satisfied that the safety cocoons were operating properly, Ben released them and the molds slid back into their recesses.
The cocoons are made up on the surface or in the chinks of the bark, and may be searched for, all through the winter and early spring.
Adkin found some of these cocoons spun up between the folds of an old brown blanket used as a covering for a rabbit hutch in winter.
The cocoon is roughly constructed of silk and earth, and before spinning it the autumnal caterpillar sometimes burrows a good depth under the surface of the soil; the summer cocoons are said to be made up among leaves.
Cocoons in addition, among the leaves of trees and on stems of low plants and the trunks of trees, may also be revealed.
Barrett states that in the middle of February, after a moth had emerged, he "put a large number of cocoons upon a warm mantelpiece and obtained scores of moths within a few hours.
The cocoons are spun up in the crevices of bark on tree trunks, or in the fork of a twig, under the eaves of an out-house or shed, on palings and fences, etc.
The cocoons are introduced with the insect's head turned towards the opening.
Should you inspect the cell later, you will find, between the heapedcocoons on the wall, a little dried-up corpse.
Those cocoons with a single egg are as numerous as I can wish; they exceed my wishes: my little glass receptacles are too few to hold them.
Sometimes the robbers seize empty cocoons and carry them away, but they leave them on the road when they have discovered their mistake.
At one end of a short series we have humble-bees, which use their old cocoons to hold honey, sometimes adding to them short tubes of wax, and likewise making separate and very irregular rounded cells of wax.
A Professor Wiggler was now worth two bull's-eyes, and even two classical Polyphemuses, or three Attacus prometheus cocoons were considered only a just and dignified equivalent for a full-grown specimen of the new professor.
See "Sharp Eyes," But what do we find in these cocoons that we now have before us?
I had been expecting daily to see my full-grown caterpillars either beginning their cocoons or suspending themselves by their tails in readiness for the chrysalis state.
These curious cocoons had been familiar to me since my boyhood, having long excited my wonder before finally revealing their mystery.
Yes, they might easily be mistaken for cocoons if we simply contented ourselves with looking at them.
With the title the resemblance ends, for the cocoons which I am about to describe are of a sort that has never been mentioned in any previous article.
Some Curious Cocoons The title of this article will doubtless recall to readers of "Harper's Young People"[1] a paper upon a similar subject which appeared in my calendar series two years ago.
Such, for instance, is the little brown winter snuggery of the woolly-bear caterpillar which we all know, and whose prickly cocoons may be found beneath stones and logs in the fields.
Another curious distinction between the stingers and non-stingers is that the larvae of the former spin cocoons and those of the latter do not; the larvae of Formica fusca occasionally do not do so, but they are an exception to the rule.
It is advisable that the cocoons also, where practicable, should be preserved, to give a notion of their appearance in nature.
Count the number of cocoons upon the entire tree or estimate it by counting those upon a part of the tree.
Upon what part of the tree are the cocoons made, and why?
On what kinds of trees are the cocoons and the caterpillars generally found?
Assuming that one half of the cocoons bear eggs, calculate the number of caterpillars on a tree next year.
Also look very carefully on the under side of leaves, on twigs, and on the bark of trees for chrysalids of butterflies and cocoons of moths.
The following directions apply more particularly to the study of the cocoons and the general harmfulness of the tussock moth.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "cocoons" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
