Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 185, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 August 1920 — Puina, a Fish, Spins Silk. [ARTICLE]

Puina, a Fish, Spins Silk.

The most costly of all kinds of silk hosiery is made from silk which is not the product of the silkworms, but a species of shellfish called a puina. The puina makes its home in the warm waters of the Mediterranean around Sicily. • It has an odd little tube at the end of its tongue. Out of this tube, spider fashion, or silkworm fashion it spins a silk thread with which it fastens Itself to any rack to which, it to adhere. When the puina moves on to fresh feeding grounds its silken cable is left behind. This cable which is called byssus, the Sicilian fishermen gather. Byssus weaves into the softest, finest, sheeniest of fabrics; but it is very rare and the stock Ings woven from it consequently areas has been said—exceedingly expeo- . »lve.-New England Fisheries, i .’ '■ <»-■ J