The reader will remember that this was one of the three sacred colours—scarlet, purple, and blue-used in the vestments of the priests and the hangings of the tabernacle, the white not taking rank as a colour.

The Coccus belongs to the Homoptera in common with the cicada, the lantern flies, the hoppers, and the aphides.

On page 623 the large females are shown on the prickly pear, and near them are the tiny males, some flying and some on the leaves.

LEPIDOPTERA.

THE CLOTHES MOTH.

The Moth of Scripture evidently the Clothes Moth-The Sâs and the 'AshSimilitude between the Hebrew sas and the Greek sês-Moths and garmentsAccumulation of clothes in the East -Various uses of the hoarded robes-The Moths, the rust, and the thief.

ONLY one Lepidopterous insect is mentioned by name in the Scriptures. This is the MOTH, by which we must always understand some species of Clothes Moth-in fact, one of the Tineidæ, which are as plentiful and destructive in Palestine as in this country.

Two words are used in the Old Testament to express the Moth, one of which, sás, only occurs once, and then in connexion with the other word 'ash. The resemblance of the Hebrew sas and the Greek sés is to be noted, both of them denominating the same insect. See Is. li. 8: "For the moth ('ash) shall eat them up like garment, and the worm (sas) shall eat them like wool." Buxtorf translates sás as tinea, blatta.

Several references are made to the Moth in the Scriptures, and nearly all have reference to its destructive habits. The solitary exceptions occur in the Book of Job, "Behold, He put no trust in His servants; and His angels He charged with folly: how much less in them that dwell in houses of clay, whose

foundation is in the dust, which are crushed before the moth?" (Ch. iv. 18, 19.) A similar allusion to the Moth is made in the same book: He buildeth his house as a moth, and as a booth that the keeper maketh" (xxvii. 18).

The Moth is mentioned in one of the penitential passages of the Psalms: "When Thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, Thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth : surely every man is vanity" (Ps. xxxix. 11).

The prophets also make use of the same image. "Behold, the Lord God will help me; who is he that shall condemn me? lo, they all shall wax old as a garment; the moth shall eat them" (Isa. 1. 9). The image is repeated in the next chapter (ver. 8), in which the 'Ash and the Sâs are both mentioned. Hosea employs the word as a metaphor expressive of gradual destruction: "Therefore will I be unto Ephraim as a moth, and to the house of Judah as rottenness" (v. 12).

In the New Testament reference is made several times to the Moth. "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal" (Matt. vi. 19). St. James, in a kind of commentary on this passage, writes as follows: "Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.

"Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth

eaten.

"Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasures together for the last days." (v. 1-3.)

Even to ourselves these passages are significant enough, but to the Jews and the inhabitants of Palestine they possessed a force which we can hardly realize in this country. In the East large stores of clothing are kept by the wealthy, not only for their own use, but as presents to others. At a marriage feast, for example, the host presents each of the guests with a wedding garment. Clothes are also given as marks of favour, and a present of "changes of raiment," i.e. suits of clothing, is one of the most common gifts. As at the present day, there was anciently not greater mark of favour than for the giver to present the very robe which he was wearing, and when that robe happened to be an official one, the gift included the rank which it symbolized. Thus Joseph was invested with royal robes, as well as with the

SS

royal ring (Gen. xli. 42). Mordecai was clothed in the king's robes: "Let the royal apparel be brought which the king useth to wear, and the horse the king rideth upon, and the crown royal which is set upon his head.

"And let this apparel and horse be delivered to the hand of one of the king's most noble princes, that they may array the man withal whom the king delighteth to honour, and bring him on horseback through the street of the city, and proclaim before him, Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delighteth to honour." (Esther vi. 8, 9.)

The loose clothing of the East requires no fitting, as is the case with the tight garments of the West; any garment fits any man so that the powerful and wealthy could lay up great stores of clothing, knowing that they would fit any person to whom they were given. An allusion to this practice of keeping great stores of clothing is made in Job xxvii. 26: "Though he heap up silver as the dust, and prepare raiment as the clay;

He may prepare it, but the just shall put it on, and the innocent shall divide the silver."

So large was the supply of clothing in a wealthy man's house, that special chambers were set apart for it, and a special officer, called the "keeper of the garments" (2 Chron. xxxiv. 22), was appointed to take charge of them.

Thus, when a man was said to have clothing, the expression was a synonym for wealth and power. See Isa. iii. 6: "When a man shall take hold of his brother of the house of his father, saying, Thou hast clothing, be thou our ruler."

The reader will now see how forcible was the image of the Moth and the garments, that is used so freely in the Scriptures. The Moth would not meddle with garments actually in use, so that a poor man would not be troubled with it. Only those who were rich enough to keep stores of clothing in their houses need fear the Moth, which would be as destructive to that portion of their wealth represented by their clothes as the "rust,"

-i. e. the Grain Moth (Tinea granella)—which consumed their stores, or the thief who came by night and stole their gold and silver.

THE SILKWORM MOTH.

Various passages wherein Silk is mentioned-The virtuous woman and her household-Probability that the Hebrews were acquainted with Silk-Present cultivation of the Silkworm-The Silk-farms of the Lebanon-Signification of the word Meshi-Silkworms and thunder-Luis of Grenada's sermon-The Hebrew word Gazam, and its signification-The Palmer-worm of Scripture.

IN the Authorized Version there are several passages wherein silk is mentioned, but it is rather doubtful whether the translation be correct or not, except in one passage of the Revelation: And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more :

"The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk." (xviii. 11, 12.)

In Prov. xxxi. 22 Solomon writes of the virtuous woman, that she maketh herself coverings of tapestry; her clothing is silk and purple." The word which is here given as "silk" is translated in the Jewish Bible as fine linen."

In the other two passages, however, in which the word occurs it is rendered as "silk :" "I clothed thee also with broidered work, and shod thee with badger's skin, and I girded thee about with fine linen, and I covered thee with silk" (Ezek. xvi. 10). See also verse 13 of the same chapter: "Thus wast thou decked with gold and silver, and thy raiment was of fine linen and broidered work."

That the Hebrews were acquainted with silk from very early times is nearly certain, but it is probable that until comparatively late years they only knew the manufactured material, and were ignorant of the source whence it was derived. As to the date at which silk was introduced into Palestine, nothing certain is known; but it is most likely that Solomon's fleets brought silk from India, together with the other valuables which are mentioned in the history of that monarch.

At the present day silk is largely cultivated, and the silkfarmers of the Lebanon are noted for the abundance of the crop which is annually produced. The greatest care is taken in rearing the worms. An excellent account of these farms is given by Mr. G. W. Chasseaud in his "Druses of the Lebanon:"

"Proceeding onward, and protected from the fierce heat of the sun's rays by the pleasant shade of mountain pines, we were continually encountering horseloads of cocoons, the fruit of the industry of the Druse silk-rearer. The whole process, from hatching the silkworms' eggs till the moment that the worm becomes a cocoon, is one series of anxiety and labour to the peasant. The worms are so delicate that the smallest change of temperature exposes them to destruction, and the peasant can never confidently count upon reaping a harvest until the cocoon is fairly set."

After a long and interesting description of the multiplied and ceaseless labours of the silk-grower in providing food for the armies of caterpillars and sheltering them from the elements, the writer proceeds as follows:

"The peasant is unwilling to permit of our remaining and watching operations. Traditional superstition has inculcated in him a dread of the evil eye. If we stop and admire the wisdom displayed by the worm, it will, in his opinion, be productive of evil results; either the cocoon will be badly formed, or the silk will be worthless. So, first clearing the place of all intruders, he puts a huge padlock on the door, and, locking the khlook (room in which the silkworms are kept), deposits the key in his zinnar, or waistband.

"Next week he will come and take out the cocoons, and, separating them from the briars, choose out a sufficiency for breeding purposes, and all the rest are handed over to the women of his family. These first of all disentangle the cocoon from the rich and fibrous web with which it is enveloped, and which constitutes an article of trade by itself. The cocoons are then either reeled off by the peasant himself or else sold to some of the silk factories of the neighbourhood, where they are immediately reeled off, or are suffocated in an oven, and afterwards, being well aired and dried, piled up in the magazines of the factory.