Getting silk from cocoons

HAVE you ever wondered how silk is collected from silkworms? The silkworm spins a cocoon for itself out of silk - usually while eating a lot of mulberry leaves. After the cocoons are formed, they are gathered and sorted. Heat is used to kill the pupae inside.

If the butterfly were to come out of the cocoon, it would break all the silk threads. The cocoons are put into near-boiling water, and the very fine threads called ''filaments'' are reeled together to make a regular silk thread.