generally the sand-sheaths, or cases made of
sand, glued together by the common sea-
worm, called the Sabella. The insect, like
the worm, exudes a glue which fastens the
sand or earth together, and in the form
desired by each of the different species. The
gluing of tiny twigs to the hard covering,
reminds me of the topshell or trochus, called
Phorus, which glues bits of shells to its
shell. The .French call this mollusc, La
Fripière, or the rag-gatherer, and several
species of shell-moths may be called
twig-gatherers. The twig-gatherers, however,
arrange their rods with order and method,
and all raking aft.

The shell-moths are nocturnal moths. The
males having scale-wings, the moths are
Lepidoptera, or of the order of the scale-wings.
The helicinella, or snail-shell moth, is an
object of great interest, at present, among the
lovers of insect-lore, many of whom are busy
observing and discussing her structure and
habits. The shell was described as a shell,
by conchologists, before the animal was
known.

Schrank gave the name of Psychidæ to this
tribe of nocturnal moths. Why I should
be bothered with Greek mythology and
Psyche, when thinking of shell-moths, I
cannot conceive; but I suppose I must bow, like
all the world, to the ancient tyranny of
pedantry.

Duponchal, in his catalogue of the
Lepidoptera of Europe, describes the Psychidæ by
the following characteristics. Antennae
pectinated or plumose, that is, ears or feelers
comb-like or plume-like; body very velvety;
wings laden with few scales, and often almost
diaphanous or transparent; females wingless
and vermiform, or worm-like, and never leaving
their cases, shells, or sheaths. The larvæ
are smooth and discoloured; the three first
wings are horny, and the rest are soft. There
are twenty-five known species which are
divided into the sections of the pectinated
and plumose Psychidæ.

The section of the Psychidæ, with comb-like
ears, feelers, or horns, have slim bodies, and
their wingless females have complete tarsi,
or feet-joints, and antennæ. There are eleven
species of pectinated Psychidæ, among which
may be cited Psyche pectinella, Psyche
nitidella, &c.

The section of Psychidæ, with plumose
or feathery feelers, horns, or ears, have very
velvety bodies. Their females are worm-like.
There are fourteen species of feathery
Psychidæ, among which may be noticed
P. hirsutella, P. muscella, P. albida, &c. The
shell-moths are spread all over Europe, but
chiefly in the south of France, and they have
been observed in Western Africa.

The shell-moths illustrate the variety
which reigns in the application of the grand
and simple laws of animated nature. Moths
pass their lives like snails in shells; fishes
build nests; shellfish suspend themselves by
threads, like spiders and caterpillars; feet
breathe; there are animals in which there
are separate lives in the separate links, and
others with the life concentrated in a pin's head
point; there is generation by alternate
generations, and some strange secret conceals
the propagation of the shell-moths; but all
the variations of forms and instruments are
only marvellous while the laws or
principles of nutrition and reproduction are
sublime.

SIAMESE EMBASSY IN THE
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

SIR JOHN BOWRING, in his book on Siam,
tells us that while settling with the punctilious
officials at Banjkok the ceremonial of
his reception at court, he had frequent occasion
to refer for precedents, and always
successfully, to M. de Chaumont's narrative
of his mission to Siam in the year sixteen
hundred and eighty-five. If the Siamese
envoys, now in this country, have in their
turn studied the official reports of their
ancestors who visited the court of Louis the
Fourteenth in the following year, they must
have been surprised and disgusted at the
neglect and oblivion to which their arrival
here in the middle of the dead season and
the parliamentary recess consigned them.
Unless they be very intelligent men indeed,
with a faculty of comprehending the changes
of the times scarcely to be expected from
Orientals, not all the attention which they
have received at our hands will prevent
them from setting us down as very inferior
to our next neighbours in the art of
receiving distinguished strangers.

In the year sixteen hundred and eighty-
four, the Chevalier de Chaumont was sent as
ambassador from the Grand Monarque to the
King of Siam, and with him, as a sort of
coadjutor, went the Abbé de Choisy, better
known for his strange mania of dressing
himself in female attire, and passing under female
names. The embassy was at first not
unsuccessful. Land was given to the Jesuits
for their churches, commercial privileges
were granted to French traders, and the
prime minister promised that, if a strong body
of troops were sent out from France, they
should be placed in such a position as would
give them a commanding influence over the
country.

M. de Chaumont returned to France in
sixteen hundred and eighty-six, bringing with
him from Siam three ambassadors, who were
empowered to conclude a treaty of amity and
friendship with the French monarch. Each
ambassador was selected for some special
qualification. The first was the son of the prime
minister; he took the lead on all occasions,
and was apparently chosen for his oratorical
abilities; the second had formerly gone on an
embassy to Pekin, and would therefore be able
to give his master some idea, by comparison,