LEPIDOPTEEA. 215 



The native country of the silkworm is not better known than that 

 of the greater number of plants and animals which form the staple 

 of agricultural industry. It is probable, however, that its native 

 country was China. It was certainly in this vast empire that long 

 since the business of fabricating silk began. One reads the 

 following in " 1'Histoire generale de la Chine," by le P. Mailla : 



" The Emperor Hoang-ti, who lived 2,600 years before our era, 

 wished that Si-ling-chi, his wife, should contribute to the happi- 

 ness of his people ; he charged her to study the silkworm, and to 

 try to utilise its threads. Si-ling-chi caused a great quantity of 

 these insects to be collected, which she fed herself in a place 

 destined exclusively for the purpose ; she not only discovered the 

 means of rearing them, but still further the manner of winding off 

 their silk and of employing it in the manufacture of fabrics." 



It may be asked, however, if the learned men who composed this 

 recital did not collect under the reign of the emperor Hoang-ti 

 all the events and all the discoveries whose dates were lost in the 

 obscurity of the most remote periods of history. Is not the 

 Empress Si-ling-chi a mythical person ? a sort of Chinese Ceres, 

 to whom, under the title of goddess of the silkworm, they then 

 raised altars ? 



Here, at any rate, is how Duhalde* analyses the recital of the 

 Chinese annalists on the remarkable fact of the introduction of the 

 silkworm, and its rich products, into the Chinese empire : 



" Up to the time of this queen (Si-ling-chi)/' says he, " when 

 the country was only lately cleared and brought into cultivation, 

 the people employed the skins of animals as clothes. But these 

 skins were no longer sufficient for the multitude of the inhabi- 

 tants ; necessity made them industrious ; they applied themselves 

 to the manufacture of cloth wherewith to cover themselves. But it 

 was to this princess that they owed the useful invention of silk 

 stuffs. Afterwards, the empresses, named by Chinese authors ac- 

 cording to the order of their dynasties, found an agreeable occupa- 

 tion in superintending the hatching, rearing, and feeding of silk- 

 worms, in making silk, and working it up when made. There 

 was an enclosure attached to the palace for the cultivation of 

 mulberry trees. 



* "Description de la Chine," torn, ii., p. 205. 



