14 THE CAUSES WHICH PROPAGATE 



winter's dearth. There also are found the Ant Lions and Trap- 

 door Spiders. The Italian Fire Flies nightly flash along- the 

 rivers; florid species of butterflies, Charaxes a:ud Dana is, flutter 

 in localities. These sights and sounds emphatically signalise 

 the Mediterranean basin, and, like the warm Afric sirocco, 

 breathe an alien character over the Continent's southern hem. 

 A visit to the palatial museum of Marseilles will allow us 

 further to enlarge our scope, and learn how Europe in hoar 

 antiquity was even more a part of the globe as regards produc- 

 tions, clothed even as late as Tertiary time with fan-leaved palms 

 that seem to have escaped the trim gardens of the Riviera, 

 among which flitted Brown Butterflies, Moths, Tipulge, and Bees, 

 with little-snouted Weevil Beetles, that fraternise strangely with 

 the latter-day legions of pink destroying Chafers and Humming- 

 bird Moths. 



Even in this minute department of Nature the hammer of 

 the Great Workman was ringing, and previous to the hour when 

 the Greek keels beached on the shore they deemed so beautiful, 

 Nature had been moulded, so to speak, and decked in her attrac- 

 tive robes. And were we to historically classify the works of 

 man as indicative of progress, Ave should likewise And these 

 running through their cycles obedient to exterior law. Arts 

 and commerce pass from one race to another, and wax and wane. 

 Assyria, Greece, Rome had their day. Races arose from the 

 East, West, North, and South, and swept over these gay cities 

 like a deluge, mingling and commingling. Spread the light 

 lateen on the kissing land-breeze, and waft round those misty 

 headlands renowned in battle and song. The sea, no longer red 

 with Punic blood-stains, changes colour like a dolphin in the 

 eventide, and the hum of busy cities lingers on the ear. ■'Tis 

 Aphrodite that leads her chariot over the wave, or the Nereides 

 that wail among shaftless columns and marish damj) ? No ; now 

 all the very creed is changed, and the strains of Ave Maria 

 arise as the prow rushes throug'h the foam. 



But it is not migration pure and simple that has writ on our 

 southern fauna and Jlora Afrie's brand and India's swarthy hue. 

 We have some evidence of a time when the Mediterranean was 

 not, and Italy formed a promontory of a southern land. The 

 Ovidian lyre speaks of a vague tradition or sailor's tale then 



