An history of the wonderful things of nature set forth in ten severall classes wherein are contained I. The wonders of the heavens, II. Of the elements, III. Of meteors, IV. Of minerals, V. Of plants, VI. Of birds, VII. Of four-footed beasts, VIII. Of insects, and things wanting blood, IX. Of fishes, X. Of man / written by Johannes Jonstonus, and now rendred into English by a person of quality.

CHAP. IV. Of the Silk-Worm.

ZOnoras saith, that the Italians knew not the Silk-Worm before the time of Justinian: in his dayes it was wittily found out and brought thither, Procopius. He adds, that two Monks brought Silk-Worm eggs from India to Constantinople, and putting them into dung transformed them into Worms. Now Sera whence they came, is a City in the farthest parts of Persia, wherein there is made so much Silk work, that ten thousand pounds of Silk are daily given out to work-folks. Also in Taprobana Silk is gathered from Trees without any labour, as many Navigations have discovered. Nature hath shew'd so much art in this Insect, that it is impossible to comprehend it all. Much is written, and much more may be. First, it is a Worm; shut up in a bladder, it dies without any forme; at length a winged butterfly comes forth of the case: wherfore a creeping Insect is change∣ed into a flye by a medium that is vegetable void of sense and moti∣on, by a strange metamorphosis. The little Worm first shut out, seeks abundance of nourishment, and eating greedily what she is able, by often lifting up her head, striving as it were with a Lethargy, she sleeps at length 3, or 2, days, and in the mean while casting her skin, she falls to her wonted diet again, when she hath fed 4, times, slept 4, times, and 4, times changed her Coat; she will eat no more, but climbs up on high upon the branches, and twigs, having discharg∣ed her belly as it should, she begins to spin some rudiments of her Silken work upon the boughs, but in disordered turnings, then she shuts her self into a transparent case, and thrusts forth the fruit of her indefatigable labour, from the centre to the circumference, white

Wooll, yellow, and green, of an ovall figure, striving as it were with her fellows, in 9 dayes she ends her task, and dyes within it. From this case laid under ground, a horned Butterfly comes forth after ten dayes, but being neither mindfull of its wings nor food, being about to repair the losse of its short life by its fruitfulnesse of young ones, put into a soft fleece for 3. dayes together, but seldom for 4. dayes, is the male coupled to the female, and dies; and shortly after the fe∣male widow, leaving behind her about a hundred seeds like Millet seeds, she dyeth also. But because Andreas Libavius, a most deser∣ving Physitian, hath most accurately described this from his own ob∣servation, I thought fit to joyn his historicall observation, as an Ap∣pendix to the end of this Classis, for the benefit of those that search the Secrets of Nature.