WILD SILK WORMS. J 77 



now acquit ourselves of what we owe to his memory, but 

 we have not the baseness or bad faith not to do him honor, 

 for what we owe to his work. 



What Pliny relates of the silk worms of the island of 

 Cos, in the seventeenth section of the eleventh book, is very 

 difficult to understand and explain as it appears to us. Has 

 the text been altered ? Has the signification of some word, 

 been lost ? This learned man, who has made so many re- 

 searches, and preserved for us so much learning, had he 

 defective memoirs upon that article ? We leave the ques- 

 tion to be decided by those who have a right to pronounce : 

 for ourselves, it appears to us very remarkable arid worthy 

 of attention, that of the three kinds of wild silk worms 

 which are raised in China, two kinds are raised oil the 

 ash and oak trees, as in the island of Cos. We would not 

 dare to say that they are not also raised on the cypress and 

 fir trees, because as we cannot know to a certainty, what 

 is practised in the provinces, we do not believe that the 

 silence of the books suffices to draw the conclusion. Even 

 suppose that the learned gentlemen, prepossessed against 

 the wild silk worms, only speak of them in passing ; per- 

 haps it is, that the Government does not wish to promote or 

 extend the method of raising them. It has been affected not 

 to say a word in the great agricultural collection, which has 

 been published by order of the reigning Emperor. The 

 idea suggested itself, that these modern silk worms, having 

 the indelible stain of being neglected and despised by an- 

 tiquity, a learned man disgraces himself in speaking of 

 them in detail: but the present Ministry is not blinded 

 by such prejudices, which operate only with the helots 

 of the school of Confucius. For, perhaps, these wild silk 

 worms, being more precarious and more difficult to raise 

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