THE COASTS OF SICILY. 237 



These birds, which the zeal of the Christian Neo- 

 phytes vainly attempted to banish from the country, 

 have maintained their old habitats, and defying in 

 the present day the shot of the sportsman, as in the 

 middle ages they defied the thunders of excommuni- 

 cation, they still come year by year to build their 

 nests among the grottoes and the rocky recesses 

 which abound along the shore. 



For the rest it would almost seem, as if to spite 

 the saint who had thrown down her altars, the 

 Goddess of Beauty still continued to shed her favours 

 over the land which had once been consecrated to 

 her worship. The women of the village of San- 

 Juliano, which is built on the ancient Mount Eryx, 

 have the reputation of being the most beautiful in 

 the land of Sicily. Admitting that such is the fact, 

 we might perhaps discover a natural explanation 

 of this circumstance in that transmission of generic 

 characteristics, to which man is no less subjected 

 than the lower animals. The priestesses of the 

 Erycinean Venus, who were no vestals, were selected 

 with much care from amongst the loveliest maidens 

 of Greece, Sicily, and Italy. This choice source of 

 origin would, most probably, in the course of ages, 

 diffuse some of its elements of beauty among the 

 neighbouring tribes ; and this circumstance can 

 hardly have failed to influence their physical de- 

 velopment. We are therefore probably not wrong 

 in conjecturing, that the superior charms of the 

 women of San-Juliano still afford evidence of this 

 origin, by an impress of beauty which has defied the 

 action of time. 



