Having acquired full size in the course of twenty-five to thirty days, and ceasing to eat during the remainder of its life, it begins to discharge a viscid secretion in the form of pulpy twin lines that rapidly harden in the air. It begins now to climb and seek out a suitable place for spinning the cocoon. For this purpose broom and heath-bushes are erected about the trays in which they have hitherto lived and fed and sloughed their skins. The insect first forms a loose structure of floss-silk, and then within it the closer texture of its nest, of an ovoid shape; within this the caterpillar remains working out of sight, spinning its own beautiful winding-sheet, the production of which reduces its size to one-half. On the completion of the cocoon it changes its skin once more and becomes a chrysalis. In this corpse-like state it remains for a fortnight or three weeks. Then it bursts its cerements and comes forth furnished with wings, antennæ and feet for living in its new element—the atmosphere. The female moth flutters its wings, but rarely uses them for flight, but the male employs his for seeking a partner. As the moth is not furnished with teeth, it perforates its tomb by knocking with its head against the end of the cocoon, after moistening it with saliva, and thus rendering the filaments more easily torn asunder by its claws. In the perfect or _imago_ form the insect takes no food, and lives only two or three days; the female dies after laying her eggs, and the male does not long survive her. The cocoons destined for filature are not suffered to remain many days with the worms alive within them. Those containing male moths are distinguished as being lighter than those that hold the female. Only so many of each are retained as are required for the propagation of the worm. The rest are plunged in boiling water or put into an oven to extinguish the life in the chrysalis. The reeling off of the silk is the next process. The cocoons are softened by immersion in warm water, and then the reeler stirs them with brushes, to which the loose threads adhere, and are thus drawn out of the water. They are taken up four or five together and twisted by the fingers into one thread, passed through a metal loop, and reeled off. The silk husbandry is completed within six weeks from the end of April.[10] The life of the insect from leaving the egg has been about fifty days, and in that period what a series of changes—transformations even—it has gone through; and all for what, but the produce of one of the most beautiful imaginable textures for the adornment of womankind! Verily Nature has made laborious provision that she should be coquette. Even the severe Quakeress, objecting on principle to all adornment, must don a pearl-grey silk bonnet.