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.[819] Rev. Stephen Olin tells us that the Mohammedans of Arabia will not allow strangers to look into their cocooneries, on account of their superstitious fear of the evil eye, of the influence of which the Silk-worms are thought to be peculiarly susceptible.[820] The silk of the nests of the social caterpillar of the _Bombyx Madrona_, was an object of commerce in Mexico in the time of Montecusuma; and the ancient Mexicans pasted together the interior layers, which may be written upon without preparation, to form a white, glossy pasteboard. Handkerchiefs are still manufactured of it in the Intendency of Oaxaca.[821] A complete nest of these Silk-worms, called in Brazil _sustillo_, was sent by the Academy of Sciences and Natural History to the King of Spain. The naturalist, Don Antonio Pineda, sent also a piece of this natural silk paper, measuring a yard and a half, of an elliptical shape, which, however, is peculiar to them all.[822] The Chinese fix on rings with threads the females of two species of wild _Bombyx_, whose caterpillars produce silk, and place these insects on a tree, or on some body situated in the open air, to allow the males, guided by their scent, to visit them.[823] “The manner of the Chinese is,” we read in Purchas’s Pilgrims, “in the Spring time to revive the Silke-worms (that lye dead all the Winter) by laying them in the warme sunne, and (to hasten their quickening, that they may sooner goe to worke) to put them into bagges, and so hang them under their childrens armes.”[824] In China, the pupæ of the Silk-worms after the silk is wound off, and the larvæ of a species of Sphinx-moth, furnish articles for the table, and are considered delicacies.[825] The natives of Madagascar, who eat all kinds of insects, consider also Silk-worms a great luxury.[826] Aldrovandus states that the German soldiers sometimes fry and eat Silk-worms.[827]