CH. VI.] INDIAN AND OTHER MOTHS. 115 



much more easily raised than the common silk- 

 worms : he did not lose any by sickness ; neither 

 lightning nor thunder disturbs them ; nor are they 

 subject to be hurt by the frost, as is the case with 

 the common kind. And as they lie so long in their 

 chrysalis state, the cocoons may be unwound at 

 leisure hours during the winter evening. One of 

 their cocoons will weigh more than four of the 

 common silkworms, and, it may be presumed, will 

 yield a proportionably greater quantity of silk. 



Means also have been employed by M. Bon, in 

 the year 1710, for procuring and preparing silk from 

 the webs of spiders, from which we have extracted 

 the following; — 



" M. Bon reduces the spiders under two heads, 

 those with long legs and those with short, which 

 furnish the finest raw silk. The filaments of the 

 spiders are of two kinds ; the first is weak, and is 

 commonly termed the web, it only serves for the 

 purpose of catching flies; the second is much 

 stronger, and is formed into bags to contain the 

 eggs, which, by this means, are sheltered from the 

 cold, and guarded from the ichneumon: the bags 

 are wound very loose round the eggs ; the latter are 

 generally of a gray colour when fresh, but they 

 soon turn blackish when exposed to the air." 



M. Bon collected about twelve or thirteen ounces 

 of the bags of the short-legged kind, as they were 

 the most common to be met with ; and caused them 

 to be well beaten for some time with the hand and 

 a stick, to get out all the dust; he then washed 

 them in lukewarm water, till they left the water 

 very clean; after this operation, he laid them to 

 steep, in a large vessel, with soap, saltpetre, and 

 gumarabic. The whole was left to boil over a 

 gentle fire for three hours, then taken out, and 

 washed in warm water to get out the soap ; and 

 after all, laid to dry some days, to fit them for card' 

 ing, which was done by the coinmon silk-carders. 



