VOL. XXVII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TKANSACTIONS. 546 



rally breed; but far from making any advantage of so useful a discovery, they 

 could nev^er imagine these worms should produce so beautiful and valuable a 

 thread, and made many chimerical conjectures about it. So that in conse- 

 quence of their ignorance and idleness, silk was for several ages so very scarce, 

 that it was sold for its weight in gold; and Vopiscus relates, that for this 

 reason the emperor Aurelian refused his empress a suit of silks, though she 

 earnestly desired it. Its scarcity continued a long time, and it was to the 

 monks at last that we owe the manner of breeding silk-worms, who brought 

 their eggs from Greece, under the reign of the emperor Justinian, as we learn 

 from Godefridus, in his notes on the Code ; and Ulpian assures us, that the 

 price of silk was equal to that of pearls. It was late before France made any 

 advantage of this discovery ; when Henry II. brought to the marriages of his 

 daughter and sister the first silk stockings that were seen in his kingdom. To 

 him and his successors we owe the establishment of this manufacture at Tours 

 and Lyons, which has made silk so common, and has so greatly increased the 

 magnificence of furniture and clothes. 



• So many examples ought to show us of what importance it is not to neglect 

 any thing in the study of nature : what at first seems of no use, or almost im- 

 possible to be put in execution, often turns to the greatest advantage, and be- 

 comes easy by care and industry. Indeed this is the fate of most new disco- 

 veries. The ingenious fable of Arachne shows us, that it is to the spider we 

 owe the first hints of weaving cloth, and laying nets for animals ; so the advan- 

 tage which may arise from this insect, will perhaps make it hereafter be esteemed 

 as highly as silk-worms and bees. 



I shall reduce all the different sorts of spiders to two principal kinds, viz; 

 such as have long legs, and such as have short ones : the latter of which fur- 

 nishes the silk I am now speaking of In respect of their particular differences, 

 they are distinguished by their colour, some being black, others brown, yellow, 

 green, white, and some again of all these several colours mixed together. 

 They differ also in the number and position of their eyes, some having 6, 

 others 8, and some 10, differently placed on the top of the head, as may easily 

 be seen by the naked eye, but much better by the help of a glass. They are^ 

 alike in other respects, as in their body, which nature has divided into two 

 parts; the fore part is covered with a shell, or hard scale, set with hairs; it 

 contains the head and breast, to which are fixed its 8 legs, each of them con-. 

 sisting of 6 joints ; they have also 2 other legs, which may be called their arms, 

 and 2 claws, armed with 2 crooked nails, and joined by articulations to the 

 extremity of the head ; with these claws they kill the insects they feed on, their 

 mouth being immediately underneath them. They have 2 small nails at the - 



