23 G BOMBICID^ — SILK- WORM MOTHS. 



the produce of a worm which built clay -nests and collected 

 wax. At first these worms, he says, assume the appear- 

 ance of small butterflies with naked bodies, but soon after, 

 being unable to endure the cold, they throw out bristly 

 hairs, which assume quite a thick coat against the winter, 

 by rubbing off the down that covers the leaves, by the aid 

 of the roughness of their feet. This they compress into 

 balls by carding it with their claws, and then draw it out 

 and hang it between the branches of the trees, making it 

 fine by combing it out, as it were : last of all, they take and 

 roll it round their body, thus forming a nest in which they 

 are enveloped. It is in this state that they are taken ; after 

 which they are placed in earthen vessels in a warm place, 

 and fed upon bran. A peculiar sort of down soon shoots 

 forth upon the body, on being clothed with which they are 

 sent to work upon another task.^ 



The first kinds of silk dresses worn by the Koman ladies 

 were from the Island of Cos, and, as Pliny says, were known 

 by the name of Coae vestes.^ These dresses, of which Pliny 

 says in such high praise, "that while they cover a woman, 

 they at the same time reveal her charms," were indeed so 

 fine as to be transparent, and were sometimes dyed purple, 

 and enriched with stripes of gold. They had their name 

 from the early reputation which Cos acquired by its manu- 

 facture of silk. But silk was a very scarce article among 

 the Romans for many ages, and so highly prized as to be 

 valued at its weight in gold. Yospicius informs us that 

 the Emperor AureKan, who died a.d. 125, refused his em- 

 press a robe of silk, which she earnestly solicited, merely on 

 account of its dearness. Galen, who lived about a.d. HS, 

 speaks of the rarity of silk, being nowhere then but at Rome, 

 and there only among the rich. Heliogabalus is said to 

 have been the first Roman that wore a garment entirely of 

 silk. 



We learn from Tacitus, that early in the reign of Tiberius, 

 about A.D. IT, the Senate enacted ''that men should not 

 defile themselves by wearing garments of silk. "^ Pliny says, 

 however, that in his time men had become so degenerate as 



1 Pliny, Ifat. Hist, xi. 23. 



2 Ibid., xi. 22. 



3 Tacitus, Ann., B. 2, c. 33. 



