It will be seen hereafter, that these "Indian Seres" were the inhabitants of Khotan in Little Bucharia.
The frequent comparison of Bombyces to spiders by the ancients suggests the inquiry whether they employed the thread of any kind of spider to make cloth, as was attempted in France by M. Bon. The failure of his attempt is sufficient, as it appears, to show, that the extensive manufacture of garments from this material must have been scarcely possible in ancient times. It is also to be observed, that the ancients, when they compare the silk-worm to the spider, refer to the spider's web, whereas M. Bon, not finding the web strong enough, made his cloth from the thread with which the spider envelopes its eggs[1].
But, although we have no reason to believe, that the web of any spider was anciently employed to make cloth, yet these accounts may have referred to worms, possibly varieties of the silk-worm, which spun long threads floating in the air. The
- ↑ The most extraordinary account of a spider's web, which we have ever seen, is that given by Lieutenant W. Smyth. He says, "We saw here (viz. at Pachiza, on the river Huayabamba in Peru) a gigantic spider's web suspended to the trees: it was about 25 feet in height, and near 50 in length; the threads were very strong, and it had the empty sloughs of thousands of insects hanging on it. It appeared to be the habitation of a great number of spiders of a larger size than we ever saw in England." Narrative of a Journey from Lima to Para, London, 1836, p. 141. For some interesting notices of the great spider of Brazil the reader is referred to Caldcleugh's Travels in South America, London 1825, vol i. ch. 2. p. 41; and to the Rev. R. Walsh's Notices of Brazil, London 1830, vol. ii. p. 300, 301. Mr. Caldcleugh "assisted in liberating from a spider's net a bird of the size of a swallow, quite exhausted with struggling, and ready to fall a prey to its indefatigable enemies." Mr. Walsh had his light straw hat removed from his head by a similar web extending from tree to tree in an opening through which he had occasion to pass. He wound upon a card several of the threads composing the web; and he observes, that, as these spiders are gregarious, the difficulties experienced by M. Bon from the ferocity of the solitary European spiders in killing and devouring one another, would not exist if the attempt were made to obtain clothing from the former. In the forests of Java Sir George Staunton "found webs of spiders, woven with threads of so strong a texture as not easily to be divided without a cutting instrument."—Account of Lord Macartney's Embassy to China, London 1797, vol. i. ch. 7. p. 302. (See Chap. IX.)
