SPIDER-SILK MANUFACTURE. 61 



blishment, which, for a time, was very prosperous. 

 Having ordered all the short-legged spiders (which 

 are the most industrious spinners) to be collected 

 for him by persons employed for the purpose, he 

 enclosed them in paper boxes, with pin-holes 

 pricked in them to admit the air to the prisoners. 

 The insects were regularly fed with flies, and 

 prospered well on their diet. In due time most 

 of them laid their eggs, and spun their silken 

 bags. M. Bon affirmed that each female produced 

 from six to seven hundred eggs, whereas the silk- 

 worm moth lays only about one hundred. He 

 also stated, that out of seven hundred or eight 

 hundred young spiders which he kept, scarcely 

 one died in a year ; while of one hundred silk- 

 worms, not forty lived to form their cocoons. 



These favourable statements led the Royal 

 Academy of Paris to take the subject into con- 

 sideration, and Reaumur was appointed to inquire 

 into the merits of the new scheme. This careful 

 inquirer found many serious obstacles in the way 

 of such establishments. The fierceness of spiders, 

 and their propensity to destroy each other, were 



