THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 

 MONTHLY. 



OCTOBER, 1873. 



SILK-WOKMS AND SERICULTUKE. 1 



By A. DE QUATREFAGES. 



TRANSLATED BT ELIZA A. YOUMANS. 



aENTLEMEN": When your honorable director invited me to 

 speak before you, I felt much embarrassed. I desired both to 

 interest and instruct you, but the subjects with which I am occupied 

 are of too abstract a nature to offer you much interest. In entering 

 upon them I run the risk of tiring you, and, as people who are tired 

 are little instructed, my aim would be doubly missed. 



However, among the animals I have studied, there is one which, I 

 think, will awaken your attention. I mean the silk-worm. Its history 

 is full of serious instruction. It teaches us not to despise a being be- 

 cause, at first, it seems useless ; it proves that creatures, in ap- 

 pearance the most humble, may play a part of great importance to the 

 world ; it shows us that the most useful things are often slow to attract 

 public attention, but that sooner or later their day of justice arrives. 

 It teaches us, consequently, not to despair when valuable ideas or 

 practical inventions are not at first welcomed as they should be, for, 

 though their triumph is delayed, it is not less sure. 



Perhaps, also, in choosing this subject, I have yielded a little to 

 national egotism. I was born in that province which was the first in | 

 France to understand the importance of the silk-worm ; which owes to 

 this industry, fertilized by study and management, a prosperity rarely 

 equalled, and which, of late cruelly smitten, bears its misfortunes with 

 a firmness worthy of imitation. 



We are to speak, then, of industry, of studious care, of perseverance, 

 of courage ; I am certain that you will be interested. 



Pemit me, at first, to make a supposition what we call an hypoth- 

 esis : what would you say if a traveller, coming from some distant 



1 A lecture delivered at the Imperial Asylum at Vincennes. 

 VOL. in. 42 



