THE BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS 51 



Silkworm Moths. Allied to both butterflies and skippers 

 is the great group of moths, stout-bodied insects, the 

 antennse of which are usually feather-like or thread-like 

 (Figs. 32, 33, 34). Moths have the habit of holding the 

 wings horizontal when at rest. They are nocturnal or diur- 

 nal in their habits, though by far the larger number fly by 

 night. Most of them spin some kind of a cocoon in which 

 they pass the pupal stage. 



We shall first consider the silkworm moths. Of these the 

 best known, as it is economically the most important, is 

 the Chinese silkworm moth (Bom 1 by x mo'ri). Cultivated in 

 China from very early times, the Chinese jealously guarded 

 the secrets of the manufacture of silk until, as the story goes, 

 in the middle of the sixth century two monks brought the 

 eggs to Constantinople by stealth, concealed in a hollow bam- 

 boo cane. The cultivation of the silkworm then spread rapidly 

 to those parts of Europe suited to its culture. It was intro- 

 duced into England in the fifteenth century, but the manu- 

 facture of silk was given no impetus till the arrival in 1585 

 of a body of Flemish weavers, who had fled from the Low 

 Countries on account of the struggle with Spain. One hun- 

 dred years later the revocation of the Edict of Nantes drove 

 a large body of skilled workmen from France to England, 

 Germany, and Switzerland, and the silk-manufacturing indus- 

 try developed still more in these three countries. From 1609 

 to the present day various efforts have been made to intro- 

 duce silk culture into the United States, the plan of bounties 

 and rewards to stimulate its growth having been tried by the 

 rulers in colonial days, and by several states since the war 

 of 1861-65. These artificial means have so far not met with 

 great success. In China the caterpillar thrives best on the 

 leaves of the white mulberry, but it has been found to do 

 well on the Osage orange, a tree widely distributed in the 

 south and west of the United States. 



