In the Isle of France, the natives believe that the dust (scales) cast from the wings of the Death's-head Moth, in flying through an apartment, is productive of blindness to the visual organs on which it falls.
There is a quaint superstition in England that the Death's-head Moth has been very common in Whitehall ever since the martyrdom of Charles I.
Illustrative of the tough texture of the skin with which many soft larvae are provided for protection, the following may be instanced: Bonnet squeezed under water the caterpillar of the privet Hawk-moth, Sphinx ligustri, till it was as flat and empty as the finger of a glove, yet within an hour it became plump and lively as if nothing had happened.
The name Sphinx is applied to this genus of insects from a fancied resemblance between the attitude assumed by the larvae of several of the larger species, when disturbed, and that of the Egyptian Sphinx.
Bombicidae — Silk-worm Moths.
The notices of the cultivation of the mulberry and the rearing of Silk-worms, found in Chinese works, have been industriously collected and published by M. Julien, by order of the French government. From his work it appears that credible notices of the culture of the tree and the manufacture of silk are found as far back as B.C. 780; and in referring its invention to the Empress Siling, or Yuenfi, wife of the Emperor Hwangti, B.C. 2602 (Du Halde says 2698), the Chinese have shown their belief of its still higher antiquity. The Shi King contains this distich:
The legitimate wife of Hwangti, named Siling Shi, began to rear Silk-worms: At this period Hwangti invented the art of making clothing.
Du Halde says this invention raised the Empress to the rank of a divinity, under the title of Spirit of the Silk-worm, and of the Mulberry-tree.
The Book of Rites contains a notice of the festival held in honor of this art, which corresponds to that of plowing by the emperor. "In the last month of spring, the young empress purified herself and offered sacrifice to the goddess of Silk-worms. She went into the eastern fields and collected mulberry-leaves. She forbade noble dames and the ladies of statesmen adorning themselves, and excused her attendants from their sewing and embroidery, in order that they might give all their care to the rearing of Silk-worms."
The manufacture of silk has been known in India from time immemorial, it being mentioned in the oldest Sanscrit books. It is the opinion of modern writers, however, that the culture of the Silk-worm passed from China into India, thence through Persia, and then, after the lapse of several centuries, into Europe. But long before this, wrought silk had been introduced into Greece from Persia. This was effected by the army of Alexander the Great, about the year 323 before Christ.
The Greeks fabled silk to have first been woven in the Island of Cos by Pamphila, the daughter of Platëos. Of its true origin they were, in a great measure, ignorant, but seem to have been positive that it was the work of an insect. Pausanias thus describes the animal and its culture: "But the thread, from which the Ceres (an Ethiopian race) make garments, is not produced from a tree, but is procured by the following method: A worm is found in their country which the Greeks call Seer, but the Ceres themselves, by a different name. This worm is twice as large as a beetle, and, in other respects, resembles spiders which weave under trees. It has, likewise, eight feet as well as the spider. The Ceres rear these insects in houses adapted for this purpose both to summer and winter. What these insects produce is a slender thread, which is rolled round their feet. They feed them for four years on oatmeal; and on the fifth (for they do not live beyond five years) they give them a green reed to feed on: for this is the sweetest of all food to this insect. It feeds, therefore, on this till it bursts through fullness, and dies: after which, they draw from its bowels a great quantity of thread."
Aristotle seems to have had a much clearer idea of the origin of silk, for he says it was unwound from the pupa (he does not expressly say the pupa, but this we must suppose) of a large horned caterpillar. The larva he means could not, however, be the common Silk-worm, since it is rather small and without horns.
Pliny, who, most probably, obtained the most of his ideas from Pausanias and Aristotle, was of opinion that silk was the produce of a worm which built clay-nests and collected wax. At first these worms, he says, assume the appearance of small butterflies with naked bodies, but soon after, being unable to endure the cold, they throw out bristly hairs, which assume quite a thick coat against the winter, by rubbing off the down that covers the leaves, by the aid of the roughness of their feet. This they compress into balls by carding it with their claws, and then draw it out and hang it between the branches of the trees, making it fine by combing it out, as it were: last of all, they take and roll it round their body, thus forming a nest in which they are enveloped. It is in this state that they are taken; after which they are placed in earthen vessels in a warm place, and fed upon bran. A peculiar sort of down soon shoots forth upon the body, on being clothed with which they are sent to work upon another task.
The first kinds of silk dresses worn by the Roman ladies were from the Island of Cos, and, as Pliny says, were known by the name of Coae vestes. These dresses, of which Pliny says in such high praise, "that while they cover a woman, they at the same time reveal her charms," were indeed so fine as to be transparent, and were sometimes dyed purple, and enriched with stripes of gold. They had their name from the early reputation which Cos acquired by its manufacture of silk. But silk was a very scarce article among the Romans for many ages, and so highly prized as to be valued at its weight in gold. Vospicius informs us that the Emperor Aurelian, who died A.D. 125, refused his empress a robe of silk, which she earnestly solicited, merely on account of its dearness. Galen, who lived about A.D. 173, speaks of the rarity of silk, being nowhere then but at Rome, and there only among the rich. Heliogabalus is said to have been the first Roman that wore a garment entirely of silk.
We learn from Tacitus, that early in the reign of Tiberius, about A.D. 17, the Senate enacted "that men should not defile themselves by wearing garments of silk." Pliny says, however, that in his time men had become so degenerate as to not even feel ashamed to wear garments of this material.
The mode of producing and manufacturing silk was not known to Europe until long after the Christian era, being first learned about the year 555 by two Persian monks, who, under the encouragement of the Emperor Justinian, procured in India the eggs of the Silk-worm Moth, with which, concealing them in hollow canes, they hastened to Constantinople. They also brought with them instructions for hatching the eggs, rearing and feeding the worms, and drawing, spinning, and working the silk.
From Constantinople, the culture of the Silk-worm spread over Greece, so that in less than five centuries that portion of this country, hitherto called the Peloponnesus, changed its denomination into that of Morea, from the immense plantations of the Morus alba, or white mulberry. Large manufactories were set up at Athens, Thebes, and Corinth. The Venetians, soon after this, commencing a commerce with the Grecians, supplied all the western parts of Europe with silks for many centuries. Several kinds of modern silk manufactures, such as damasks, velvets, satins, etc., were as yet unknown.
About the year 1130, Roger II., King of Sicily, having conquered the Peloponnesus, transported the Silk-worms and such as cultivated them to Palermo and to Calabria. Such was the success of the speculation in Calabria, that it is doubtful whether, even at the present moment, it does not produce more silk than the whole of the rest of Italy.
By degrees the rest of Italy, as well as Spain, learned from the Sicilians and Calabrians the management of Silk-worms and the working of silk; and at length, during the wars of Charles VIII., in 1499, the French acquired it, by right of neighborhood, and soon large plantations of the mulberry were raised in Provence. Henry II. is reported to have been the first French king who wore silk stockings. The invention, however, originally came from Spain, whence silk stockings were brought over to England to Henry VIII. and Edward VI.
It is stated, that at the celebration of the marriage between Margaret, daughter of Henry III., and Alexander III. of Scotland, in the year 1251, a most extravagant display of magnificence was made by one thousand English knights appearing in suits of silk. It appears also by the 33rd of Henry VI., cap. 5, that there was a company of silkwomen in England as early as the year 1455; but these were probably employed rather in embroidering and making small haberdasheries, than in the broad manufacture, which was not introduced till the year 1620.
Sir Thomas Gresham, in a letter to Sir William Cecil, Elizabeth's great minister, dated Antwerp, April 30th, 1560, says: "I have written into Spain for silk hose both for you and my lady, your wife, to whom, it may please you, I may be remembered." These silk hose, of a black color, were accordingly soon after sent by Gresham to Cecil.
Hose were, in England, up to the time of Henry VIII., made out of ordinary cloth: the King's own were formed of yard-wide taffeta. It was only by chance that he might obtain a pair of silk hose from Spain. His son, Edward VI., received as a present from Sir Thomas Gresham — Stow speaks of it as a great present — "a pair of long Spanish silk stockings." For some years longer, silk stockings continued to be a great rarity. "In the second year of Queen Elizabeth," says Stow, "her silk-woman, Mistress Montague, presented her Majesty with a pair of black knit silk stockings for a New-Year's gift; the which, after a few days' wearing, pleased her Highness so well, that she sent for Mistress Montague, and asked her where she had them, and if she could help her to any more; who answered, saying, 'I made them very carefully, of purpose only for your Majesty, and, seeing these please you so well, I will presently set more in hand.' 'Do so,' quoth the Queen, 'for indeed I like silk stockings so well, because they are pleasant, fine, and delicate, that henceforth I will wear no more cloth stockings.' And from that time to her death the Queen never wore cloth hose, but only silk stockings."
James I., while King of Scotland, is said to have once written to the Earl of Mar, one of his friends, to borrow a pair of silk stockings, in order to appear with becoming dignity before the English Ambassador; concluding his letter with these words: "For ye would not, sure, that your King should appear like a scrub before strangers." This shows the great rarity of silk articles at that period in Scotland.
In 1629, the manufacture of silk was become so considerable in London, that the silk throwsters of the city and parts adjacent were incorporated; and in 1661, this company employed above forty thousand persons. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 1685, contributed in a great degree to promote the manufacture of this article; and the invention of the silk-throwing machine at Derby, in 1719, added so much to the reputation of English manufactures, that even in Italy, according to Keysler, the English silks bore a higher price than the Italian.