With your suggestion that many sorts of white thread ornamental work, from which a development of needle-made and bobbin-made laces can be traced, are of earlier date than the sixteenth century, I entirely agree; and in corroboration of this, various public collections, within comparatively recent times, have secured from disused ancient Coptic cemeteries in Egypt fragments of elaborate nettings and Saracenic examples of that kind of work which you identify with the Italian "Sfilatura" and "punto a stuora." This last-named stitch is virtually the stitch used in tapestry-making, and it often appears on a small scale in intricate, drawn and whipped thread Persian linen embroidery, the practice of which is assuredly of great age. These methods of stitching for ornamental purposes appear to have been well known in countries coming at some time or another under the direct influence of Saracenic embroiderers; but it is interesting to note they are not identical in character with that of buttonhole stitching, which plays so important a part in lace-making. The essential feature of the fabric now recognised as lace lies in its being wrought independently of any visible foundation such as linen or net; it is essentially a textile ornamentation depending upon special design, which can be rendered, so far as needle-point lace is concerned, by variations of the buttonhole stitch--the "punto a festone" in Italy, and "point noué" in France--which is distinctively a looping, and not a whipping or weaving, stitch; and so far as bobbin-made lace is concerned, by twisting and plaiting threads together. The genesis of ornamental design for such laces is, I fancy, pretty well established through the classification of kindred designs, beginning with those involving simple abstract and geometric forms; these are gradually succeeded by others with conventional and more varied devices, suggesting plant and animal life; and these followed by others in which definitely realistic renderings of actual things are aimed at. Thus, very broadly, we have three typical groups, and of the first your photographs Nos. 3, 6, 7, with 29, 30, and 86, give examples; of the second group there are examples in photographs Nos. 11, 12, 16, 17, &c.; and the third group is illustrated by Nos. 36 and 37, 90 to 93, and 116.