116 NATURAL HISTORY. [cH. VI. 



but with cards much finer than ordinary. He thus 

 obtained a silk of an ash colour, which was easily 

 spun ; the thread thus procured was both stronger 

 and finer than that of common silk ; which shows, 

 that all sorts of works may be made of it ; nor is 

 there any reason to fear but that it will stand any 

 trials of the loom, after having passed that of the 

 stocking-weavers. M. Bon had stockings and gloves 

 made of this material, which he presented to the 

 French Academy and to the Royal Society. 



Some difficulties having been advanced as to the 

 practicability of procuring a sufficient quantity of 

 spider-bags for any large work, M. Bon observes 

 that there would be no difficulty at all, had we but 

 the art of breeding them, as we do silkworms ; for 

 they multiply much more, every spider laying from 

 six to seven hundred eggs, which are hatched of 

 themselves, without any care, in the months of Au- 

 gust and September. M. Bon ordered all the short- 

 legged spiders that could be found in the above 

 months to be brought to him, and placed them in 

 boxes made of paper, which he pricked full of pin- 

 holes to give them air, and fed them with flies : 

 some time afterward, he found that the greatest 

 part of them had formed their egg-bags ; and he 

 considered that the spiders yielded more silk in 

 proportion than the common silkworm ; for example, 

 he said that it really required two ounces of spider- 

 silk to make a pair of stockings, whereas it takes 

 seven or eight of common silk. 



But M. Reaumur was of an opinion that the nat- 

 ural fierceness of the spiders renders them unfit to 

 be bred in the manner of silkworms, or to be kept 

 together in cells, fifty or more in each, for the large 

 and strong spiders destroy and eat their weak com- 

 panions, until there is hardly one or two left in each 

 cell. He also affirms that the spider-bag is inferior, 

 both in lustre and strength, to that of the common 

 silkworm ; and he mentions that the thread of the 



