It is seldom we can deliniate more than the covering of testacious animals, particularly where the species are natives of tropical countries. In the present instance we owe this power to the singular fact of this snail having survived a voyage from Jamaica, and peered out upon an English sun. It is now near forty years ago since an intelligent correspondent of our honoured father sent him from Jamaica, a box of land shells: they were carefully packed in moist decayed wood, and enclosed the living animals. The season was summer and the voyage short; the box was immediately opened, and by placing the shells in luke-warm water, the animals of every one slowly emerged from their shells. Of their ultimate fate we know not: but that celebrated artist and entomologist, the late Mr. Lewin, then a guest in the house, executed highly finished drawings upon vellum of each species; and from one of these our present figures are faithfully copied. At the request of our friend Dr. Leach, a copy was also made by some one and transmitted to Baron de Fèrussac, for his great work upon Land shell, where it will be found engraved at pl. 58. fig. 2. M. Guerin has re-copied this latter figure, but as both are inaccurate, without any fault of these gentlemen, (who never saw the original drawing of Lewin) we have now represented it correctly. * * * * * * [Illustration: PRINIA _familiaris_ _Indian Wren warbler._] PRINIA familiaris, _Indian Wren-warbler_. ---- Family, Sylviadæ. Sub-Family, Sylvianæ. _Sw._ Genus, Prinia. _Horsf._ GENERIC CHARACTER. Bill rather lengthened, much compressed, entire; rictus smooth; wings rounded; tail broad and cuneate; feet large, strong. ---- SPECIFIC CHARACTER. _Above olive brown, beneath yellowish; ears, throat, and tips of the greater and lesser wing-covers white; tail feathers tipt with dusky white, and margined beneath by a black bar._ Prinia familiaris. _Horsfield. Zool. Researches. Linn. Trans. 8. 165._ The sultry groves of India are not without birds which recall to the European the songsters of his own distant land. And although nature, in her boundless profusion, has so distributed her productions that even the little "Kitty Wren" may in vain be looked for beyond the confines of Europe, its representative in the East is no less neat, active, and familiar to the habitations of man. The _Prinia familiaris_, observes Dr. Horsfield (whose politeness enables us to figure the bird), is abundant in many parts of Java, near villages and gardens, in the confines of which, among trees and shrubs, it builds its nest. Sprightly and active in all its motions, it sports among the branches in short and rapid flights, and has received its native name from its enlivening and pleasant notes. Our figure is the size of life, and to avoid a tedious description, all the details have been accurately measured.