11 



benefits we have obtained to ourselves by these frauds if 

 we could teach those weaker peoples the benefits of the 

 better making, and above all the more friendly interchang- 

 ing, of stuffs and commodities. It is with this hope that 

 I have arranged the present collection ; that, having India, 

 with its extensive wild-silk regions, in our possession, we 

 may, by gentle means, teach the native to improve the 

 culture and preliminary stages of its manufacture, so that it 

 may be brought from them in a state fit to be used by us 

 for all the purposes of which it is really capable ; and, to 

 use the words of Sir Louis Mallet in the first letter of 

 instruction I received from the India Office, that " a new 

 and very profitable industry may be founded in India." 



The natural history of every kind of silk may be briefly 

 stated to be this : From a small egg laid by the moth, of 

 whatever species, appears in due season a small larva, or 

 caterpillar, or worm, as it is usually called. This worm, 

 after having lived its day, feeding only on the leaves of 

 certain plants characteristic of its species, and increasing in 

 size, spins, or rather secretes, a fine silk thread around 

 itself for covering and protection during the time it lies 

 dormant in the next stage of its existence. As soon as it 

 has secreted all the silk, it changes into a pupa or chrysalis, 

 and remains inside its silken cell until the time for its 

 appearance as an imago or perfect moth, having four scaly 

 wings, with six legs and two antenna?, which are larger in 

 the male than in the female. When its hybernation is 

 ended it emits a fluid which softens the end of its cocoon 

 cell, and, by means of its wing spines and legs, parts the 

 fibres aside until the opening is large enough for it to creep 

 out. After a short time its wings expand and dry, and it 

 enters into its perfect state. 



It lives only a few days in this phase of its existence. 

 It is in this stage only that the race is perpetuated, the 

 female laying a number of eggs, and dying soon afterward. 



CHAPTER III. 



The Silk of Commerce. 



The silk which is generally known as the silk of 

 commerce, in both ancient and modern days, is distinguished 

 from all others by the singular circumstance of the larva? 

 (Plate I., Fig. 3) which produce it being fed only on the 



