114 ZOOLOGY OF INDIA. 



ises, they undertook totransport a sufficient supply of these 

 extraordinary worms to Constantinople, which they effected 

 by conveying the eggs in the interior ot a hollow cane. 

 They were hatched, it is said, by the heat of a dunghill, 

 and the larva; were fed with the leaves of wild mulberry. 

 They worked, underwent their accustomed metamorphosis, 

 and multiplied according to use and wont ; and, in the 

 course of time, have become extensively cultivated through- 

 out all the southern countries of our continent,— thus et- 

 fecting an important change in the commercial relations 

 which had so long existed between Europe and the Last.t 

 It is curious to consider how the breeding of a fewr mil- 

 hons of caterpillars should occasion such u. disparity in the 

 circumstances of different tribes of the human race. When 

 the wife and empress of Aurelian was refused a garment 

 of silk on account of its extreme costliness, the most or- 

 dinary classes of the Chinese were clad m that material 

 from top to toe ; and although among ourselves week-day 

 and holyday are now alike profaned by uncouth forms, 

 whose vast "circumference is clothed "m silk attire, yet 

 our own James the Sixth was forced to borrow a pair of 

 silken hose from the Ear! of Mar, that his state and hear- 

 in<T might be more effective in the presence of the ambas- 

 sador of England ; " for ye would not sure that your king 

 should appear as a scrub before strangers." King Henry 

 the Eighth was the first of the English sovereigns who 

 wore silk stockings. 



The silk-worm cultivated in Europe is the same as that 

 which produces the greater proportion of the Chinese man- 

 ufacture. It is the larva of the Bombyx mon. But in 

 Bengal and other parts of India valuable silk is procured 

 from^the cocoons of other species of moth. The first ot 

 these, described by Dr. Roxburgh under the name of Flia- 

 Icena vaphta, is found in such abundance over many parts ot 

 Bengal and the adjoining provinces as to have afforded to 

 the natives from time immemorial an abundant supply ot a 

 very durable, coarse, dark-coloured silk, calbd tusseh, inuch 

 used by the Bramins and other sects of Hindoos. 1 his 

 species cannot be domesticated ; but the hill-people go into 

 the jungles, and when they perceive the dung of the cater- 



* Procopius, De Bello Gothico. , , ■ s _.i ;, 



t See Gibbon's Decline and Fall, ice. (reign of Justinian), vol.iv. 



