LEPIDOPTERA. 2 1 5 



of land on condition that he planted fifty feet with mulberry trees.* 

 Hien-tsang (who ascended the throne in 806) ordered that the inhabi- 

 tants of the country should plant two feet in every acre with mulberry 

 trees.f The first Emperor of the dynasty of Song (who began to 

 reign about the year 960) published a decree forbidding his subjects 

 to cut down the mulberry trees. J 



By all these means, according to the testimony of M. Stanislas 

 Julien, the business of the fabrication of silk became general in 

 China. This great empire soon furnished its neighbours with this 

 precious textile material, and created for its own profit a very 

 important branch of commerce. 



It was forbidden, under pain of death, to export from China the 

 silkworm's eggs, or to furnish the necessary information in the art of 

 obtaining the textile material. The manufactured article only could 

 be sold out of the empire. It was thus that the Asiatic nations very 

 soon understood silk ; and that in many of their cities they applied 

 themselves to weaving stuffs of this precious substance. The carpets 

 and dyed stuffs of Babylon, mixed with gold and silk, enjoyed in 

 ancient times an unparalleled renown. China was not, however, the 

 only country that then furnished silk to the towns of Asia Minor. 

 At a very distant period India sent by her caravans very considerable 

 quantities of it. M. ijmile Blanchard (of the Institute) remarks, 

 however, that the tissues of India must be made of a different silk 

 from that of China, that is to say, of a silk of some of those Bombyccs 

 of which the public has been told so much of late years, and of which 

 we shall have soon to speak. 



Silk commanded for centuries a prodigiously high price. In the 

 time of Alexander its value in Greece was exactly its own weight in 

 gold, and so it was very parsimoniously employed in silk tissues. 

 These were so transparent that women who wore them were scarcely 

 covered. 



Silk was unknown to the Romans before Julius Caesar. It was 

 to him that Rome owed its acquaintance with this new material. 

 He introduced it, moreover, in a singularly magnificent manner. 

 One day, at a fete given in the Colosseum a combat of animals and 

 gladiators the people saw the coarse tent of cloth, intended to keep 

 off the rays of the sun, replaced by a magnificent covering of Oriental 

 silk. They murmured at this gorgeous prodigality, but declared 



* " Annales de la Dynastic des Wei." 

 t " Annales de la Dynastie des Thang." 

 J " Histoire de la Dynastie des Song." 



