One day our Biology school teacher came to school with a huge cardboard box. We were all very curious to see what the box hid and we asked her insistently to give us a clue to help us guess what surprise was inside.
After having kept us in suspense, she told us that there were silkworm eggs in the box. I didn’t know anything about silkworms. From the way she said this, we all understood that silkworms laid eggs.
The teacher cut the container into wide strips with silkworm eggs stuck on one side and gave each one of us one of these strips and invited us to put it in a new cardboard box full of green mulberry leaves and wait and see what would happen.
Riding my bike home I kept on looking at the cardboard strip that I fastened with tape onto my handle bars in order to avoid damaging the eggs and I marveled at the sight. The eggs were small like pin-heads. They all stuck to the cardboard like pins with only the head showing and they all remained still and fixed in their place.
When I got home I had a very quick snack of tea and biscuits. I then hurried to the tea-room to look for a cardboard box and I could not believe my luck. I found two identical boxes which were ideal for breeding my silkworms.
I immediately put the strip into one of these boxes and I went into the garden to fetch some big juicy green mulberry leaves which I put into the box covering the eggs completely. I found a place for my box in the garage on top of a table, so that rats could not get at it.
During the night I went to check up on the box and when I got near the table I heard a humming sound coming from it.
Silkworm eggs and newly hatched silkworms – photo by E_Bass
In the morning I found that the leaves had all been eaten and looking hard I saw that the eggs had hatched and tiny silkworms were walking all over. The little worms day by day grew bigger and to my surprise there were many striped black and white ones, like a zebra’s coat. The others were plain white. They ate nonstop and I decided to give them fresh leaves twice a day, which they simply gobbled up. They grew very fast and big and I put the zebra striped silkworms in the other box.
Silkworms – photo by Ed Schipul
I spent hours just looking at the silkworms climbing up and then going down the leaves, eating them greedily.
One morning I was in for my second big surprise. When I opened the lid of the box I saw the worms were busy weaving around themselves with a silk thread, and eventually a cocoon would close them in. The cocoon was as big as a pigeon egg and a bright yellow color.
Silkworm cocoons – photo by Su Yin Khoo
They were going to undergo a metamorphosis, thanks to which my beautiful silkworms would become white moths, so insignificant as indispensable to lay new eggs from which tiny silkworms would hatch and would eat my green mulberry leaves. The cycle would have started again and a miracle of nature would happen once more.
Silkworm cocoons and moths – photo by Harsha K R
About Mauro
I got my inspiration for this website from the song called “Imagine”, and so I decided to go on this adventure. I have always wanted to put up something like this where my friends and I could express our memories and dreams for the future. Share them with us, because if many people dream the same dream it will certainly come true.
I remember the silkworms. We used to trade with them at school among our friends, and raid the mulberry trees for fresh leaves, although it was rather freaky to pick them up. They were soft and squishy but not slimy.
I also got a piece of cardboard with silkworm eggs from another kid at school in South Africa. Mine never hatched though, I was so disappointed! I wonder what I did wrong.
Got to read your articles finally and I must say you’ve really got a signature in what you do.As for someone like me who likes to know more about different places,lifestyles and other stuffs,your fine array of articles are pretty informative and amazing.Keep up the work and the readers are waiting!!:):)