A popular Victorian natural-history handbook on the silkworm (Bombyx mori) from the Young Collector Series, in six chapters. It covers the history of silk culture, the worm's form and life history, internal anatomy and dissection, rearing and management (including cocoon stifling and reeling), diseases such as flacherie, muscardine and pebrine, and wild silk-producing moths such as the Tusser, Chinese and Japanese oak silkmoths, Polyphemus, Atlas and Ailanthus moths. It is illustrated with numerous line drawings and engravings of larvae, cocoons, moths, anatomy and rearing apparatus.