1S4 niE EARLY HISTORY OP SILK. 



— took care to bring with him, after his victories, 

 from Persia, great quantities of manufactured silks.' 



The description of the SilkwoiTn given by 

 Aristotle, is the most distinct of all handed down 

 to us by the ancient writers : he details minutely 

 the different transformations, but makes no mention 

 of the country of which the insect was a native. 



Much discrepancy prevails among the ancients 

 as to the country from whence the Silkworm was 

 brought. Pliny says, that it was on the island of 

 Kos, on the opposite side of the /Egean Sea, not 

 far from the coast of Attica, where Pamphila and 

 her nymphs made the tissue so much admired ; 

 which might be the means of leading them into 

 this error. 



It is a remarkable fact, that many authors, for 

 the long space of nine hundi'ed years after the time 

 of Aristotle, asserted that sericum, or silk, was 

 either made from a fleecy substance gi'owing upon 

 trees, from the coir, or inner bark of trees, or from 

 flowers ; all these opinions, no doubt, arising fl-om 

 the indistinct accounts which they must have heard 

 of Silkworm larvse feeding on the leaves of the 

 mulbeny-tree, mixed up with accounts which had 

 reached them of flax and cotton being produced 

 fi'om vegetable substances. Some authors, however, 

 asserted that it was produced from the filaments of 

 a spider or beetle. 



