103 



Up to this period and for some time after, the little silk which 

 reached Europe, was imported from Persia and India. The Emperor, 

 Heliogabalus, about the year 220 B.C. was the first Roman, and 

 therefore I presume the first European, who wore a garment of pure 

 silk. It was not until the sixth century after Christ, when Justinian 

 occupied the throne of Constantinople, that the real origin of silk 

 became kno^^^l to the world. About the year 550, two Persian 

 monks, at the risk of their lives brought a few eggs from China in 

 the hollow of a walking stick, and from that hour the mystery was 

 solved. For a long period the breeding of the silk-worm w^as confined 

 to the Greeks of the Lower Empire. Manufactories were established 

 in Athens, Thebes and Corinth ; from whence the Venetians, who 

 were then what England is now, the carrying nation of the world, 

 supplied Europe wdth silk goods. About the middle of the twelfth 

 century Roger, Eang of Sicily, introduced the worm into Italy ;* 

 and from this period sericulture became an established institution in 

 Europe. It was not until the commencement of the eleventh 

 century, that the mulberry was planted for the first time in France. 

 At the present day the breeding of the worm, and the preparation 

 and manufacture of the silk aftbrd employment to thousands of the 

 French population. In the year 1870 the value of the eggs and 

 cocoons imported for home use amounted to the enormous sum of 

 £2,053,000. 



In England the manufacture of silk commenced in the 15th century, 

 but made little ftrogress until the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes 

 in 1685 drove 50, 000 fugitives from the shores of France, many of 

 whom settled in Spitaliields, in the neighbourhood of London. 

 Efibrts have been made, from time to time, to rear the moth itself 

 in England on a large scale. In 1609 James I. took the matter up 

 with much earnestness, and mulberries were planted in large 

 quantities on the spot where the royal residence of Buckingham 

 Palace now stands, t The attempt however, met with no success, and 

 the spot soon became a mere place of fashionable resort. Evelyn, 

 in his well-known diary, makes an amusing allusion to it, under 

 date May 10, 1654. "My Lady Gerrard treated us at Mulberry 

 Garden, now the only place of refreshment about the town for 

 persons of the best quality to be exceedmgly treated at ; Cromwell 

 and his partisans having shut up and seized on Spring Garden, 

 which till now had been the usual rendezvous for the ladies and 

 gallants at this season." 



Nothing whatever is known of the Silk-worm in its wild condition. 

 It seems to be assumed by all biological writers, that the insect 

 came originally from Northern China ; but beyond this, all is a blank 

 in the life-history of this important insect. 



As a captive, domesticated for thousands of years, we see in the 

 Silkworm (Bomhyx or Sericaria mori) a moderately large moth of a 

 dirty white hue, with ill-formed wings — so ill-formed indeed, that 

 the creature is quite incapable of flight. The antennee, Avhich are 

 much darker in colour than the rest of the body, are very beautiful 

 in the male insect, being deeply pectinated, or cut into narrow 

 divisions, like a comb, with a double set of teeth placed back to 

 back. Beyond its pretty antennae, Sericaria has nothing to commend 



* Gibbon, Decline etc. LII. t C Knight, London, S. James' Park, 



