It is generally considered that embroidered books are extremely delicate, but this is not so; they will stand far more wear than would be imagined from their frail appearance. The embroidered work actually protects the satin, and such signs of wear as are visible are often found rather in the satin itself, where unprotected, than in the work upon it. In many cases a peculiar appearance, which is often mistaken for wear, is seen in the case of representations of insects, caterpillars, or butterflies particularly. These creatures, or parts of them, appear to consist only of slight stitches of plain thread, suggesting either that the work has never been finished, or else that the finished portions have worn away. The real fact is, however, that these places have been originally worked with small bright pieces of peacock's feather, which have either tumbled out or been eaten away by minute insects, a fate to which it is well known peacocks' feathers are particularly liable. The late Lady Charlotte Schreiber, who was a great collector of pieces of old embroidery, among a host of other curious things possessed the only perfect instance of work of this kind of the seventeenth century I have ever been fortunate enough to find. It was a very realistic caterpillar, closely and completely worked with very small pieces of peacocks' feathers, sewn on with small stitches, quite confirming the opinion I had already formed as to the original filling in of the usual 'bald' spaces representing such objects. _Bible._ London, 1619. A copy of a Bible, printed in London in 1619, is bound in white satin, and measures 6 by 3-1/2 inches. On each side is an emblematic figure enclosed in an oval; the figures are different, but their surroundings are alike. On the upper side a lady holding a palm branch in her right hand is worked in shading-stitch. She is full length, and wears an orange skirt with purple robe over it confined by a blue belt, and over her shoulders a pink jacket--all these garments are outlined by a gold cord. Her fair hair is covered by an ornamental cap of red and gold, and her feet are bare. The ground is worked with coloured silks and threads of fine wire closely twisted round with coloured silks, and the sky, painted in gradations of pink in water-colours, is worked sparsely with long stitches of blue silk. [Illustration: 36--Bible. London, 1619.]