The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous ... - Cd3wd.com

52 CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE OF
supposes the ancient Sericum to have been the produce of any-
thing except the silk-worm. But of this there are several va-
rieties, partly perhaps natural, and partly the result of domes-
tication. He endeavors to explain some parts of Pliny's descrip-
tion by showing their seeming correspondence with some of the
practices actually observed by the Orientals in the management
of silk-worms.
An account of the wild silk-wonns of China is to be found
in the " Memoires conceniant I'Histoire, les Sciences, les Arts,
&c., des Chinois," compiled by the missionaries of Peking*.
This account is principally derived from the information of Fa-
ther D'Incarville, one of the missionaries. It coincides gen-
erally with the accounts already quoted from Du Halde and
Breton. We extract the following particulars as conve}ing
some further information
:
" The Chinese annals from the year 150 B. C. to A. D. 638 make frequent
mention of the great quantity of silk produced by the wild worms, and observe
that their cocoons were as large as eggs or apricots."
The following passage is also deserving of attention : " Le
papillon de ces vers sauvages, dit le Pere d'lncarville, est a ailes
vitrees." This information, if correct, would prove that there
was at least one kind of wild silk-worms in China, which was
a different species from the Phalsena Mori ; for that has no
transparent membranes in its wings, and would not be likely to
receive them in consequence of any change in its mode of life.
We now proceed to take the Christian authors of the fourth
and following centuries in the order of time.
ARNOBIUS (a. d. 306.)
thus speaks of the heathen gods
They want the covering of a garment : the Tritonian virgin must spin a threat
of extraordinary fineness, and according to circumstances put on a tunic cither of
mail, or silkt.
* Tome ii. pp. 579-601. Paris, 1777, 4to. This Memoir is reprinted with
abridgments as an Appendix to Stanislaus .Tulion's Translation of the Cliinese
Treatise on the Breeding of Silk-worms, Paris, 1837, Bvo.
t Adv. Gentes, 1. iii. p. 580, ed. Erasmi.
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