120 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



butterflies, moths, and cicadae. These were, no doubt, blown out 

 to sea and perished in the water. I also noticed a Kingfisher and 

 a Hoopoe. When passing through the Red Sea we caught some 

 locusts, and also saw many floating dead in the water. A fine red 

 dust was at times also very dense, like a fog, and made me think 

 how very unpleasant it would have been to be on shore where it 

 came from. 



I saw a Bonito jump some ten feet straight out of the water — 

 no doubt a habit they have, as others have seen the same thing. 

 The temperature of the air at night when passing through this 

 hot and trying sea was 92 deg., and that of the water 90 deg. 

 When I tried to develop a negative it simply melted the gelatine 

 off the glass. Shoals of fish were often seen ; they were frequently 

 accompanied overhead by Caspian and other terns, and judging 

 by the number of times the birds dived they seemed to be 

 having a good time of it. No birds follow vessels in the northern 

 hemisphere (excepting gulls when near land) as the Albatross and 

 Petrels do in the southern latitudes. 



As the steamer took longer on her voyage than was expected, 

 I had to leave her at Port Said, take another vessel to Naples, 

 and proceed from there overland to London, via Rome, but it 

 was an interesting journey. 



At Naples I was able to inspect the aquarium, perhaps the 

 best of its kind in the world. The water in the tanks is beauti- 

 fully clear, and the fish, crayfish, anemones, seahorses, &c., look 

 in perfect condition, and each tank is a picture in itself. Sea- 

 weed of various kinds was growing on the ornamental rockwork 

 at the back. In the Museum I was enabled to see the paintings 

 and other remains dug up from Pompeii, which was destroyed 

 1,830 years ago by ashes from Mount Vesuvius, and, judging by 

 the representations of the geese, poultry, dogs, peafowl, &c., 

 they are apparently just as we have them in the present day, 

 many of the coloured illustrations being very life-like. There 

 were also numerous bronze figures of animals and birds, the 

 casts of horses, especially, being beautifully done. 



I was able to have a few hours at Turin, to visit their museum 

 of Egyptian antiquities, and among the mummied cats, crocodiles, 

 ibis, baboons, &c., I noticed a small collection of about fifteen 

 birds' eggs, probably collected over 3,000 years ago. They con- 

 sisted of eggs of cormorants, gannets, ducks, gulls, and one or 

 two apparently small hens' eggs. Of course there may have 

 been more where these were found, but still it is interesting to 

 see the few that are exhibited, and it also shows how long eggs 

 can be kept. They had been blown by making a hole at each 

 end, like the average schoolboy does in the present day. The 

 colour had faded out of the gulls' eggs. From the train I often 

 noticed the farmers ploughing, and they often yoked to the 



