334? DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 



ducing and manufacturing this precious material known 

 to Europe until long after the Christian sera, being first 

 learnt about the year 550 by two monks, who procured 

 in India the eggs of the silk-worm moth, with which, 

 concealing them in hollow canes, they hastened to Con- 

 stantinople, where they speedily multiplied, and were 

 subsequently introduced into Italy, of which country silk 

 was long a peculiar and staple commodity. It was not 

 cultivated in France until the time of Henry the Fourth, 

 who, considering that mulberries grew in his kingdom as 

 well as in Italy, resolved, in opposition to the opinion of 

 Sully, to attempt introducing it, and fully succeeded. 



The whole of the silk produced in Europe, and the 

 greater proportion of that manufactured in China, is ob- 

 tained from the common silk-worm ; but in India con- 

 siderable quantities are procured from the cocoons of the 

 larvae of other moths. Of these the most important 

 species known are the Tusseh and Ariridy silk-worms, of 

 which an interesting history is given by Dr. Roxburgh 

 in the Linnean Transactions*. These insects are both 

 natives of Bengal. The first (Attacus Paphia^) feeds 

 upon the leaves of the Jugube tree (Rhamnus Jujuba) or 

 Byer of the Hindoos, and of the Terminalia alata gla- 

 bra, Roxburgh, the Asseen of the Hindoos, and is found 

 in such abundance as from time immemorial to have af- 

 forded a constant supply of a very durable, coarse, dark- 

 coloured silk, which is woven into a cloth called Tusseh- 

 doofhies, much worn by the Brahmins and other sects ; 

 and would doubtless be highly useful to the inhabitants 

 of many parts of America and of the South of Europe, 

 where a light and cool, and at the same time cheap and 



3 vii. 33-48. Compare Lord Valentia's Travels, i. 78. 



