THE SILK-WOK 31. 83 



most probably brought among them from the 

 most remote parts of the East, since it was, at 

 the time of which I am speaking, scarcely known 

 even in Persia. 



Nothing can be more remote from the truth 

 than the manner in which their historians describe 

 the animal by which silk is produced. Pausanias 

 informs us, that silk came from the country of the 

 Seres, a people of Asiatic Scythia ; in which 

 place an insect, as large as the beetle, but in every 

 other respect resembling a spider, was bred up for 

 that purpose. They take great care, as he assures 

 us, to feed and defend it from the weather, as 

 well during the summer's heat as the rigours of 

 winter. This insect, he observes, makes its web 

 with its feet, of which it has eight in number. It 

 is fed for the space of four years upon a kind of 

 paste prepared for it, and at the beginning of the 

 fifth it is supplied with the leaves of the green 

 willow, of which it is particularly fond. It then 

 feeds till it bursts with fat ; after which they take 

 out its bowels, which are spun into the beautiful 

 manufacture so scarce and costly. 



The real history of this animal was unknown 

 among the Romans till the times of Justinian, and 

 it is supposed that silk-worms were not brought 

 into Europe till the beginning of the twelfth cen- 

 tury, when Roger of Sicily brought workmen in 

 this manufacture from Asia Minor, after his re- 

 turn from his expedition to the Holy Land, and 

 settled them in Sicily and Calabria. From these 

 the other kingdoms of Europe learned this manu- 

 facture, and it is now one of the most lucrative 



