248 RAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 



everywhere our eyes encountered engravings of the 

 Rue Saint-Jacques, of Napoleon, his marshals and 

 his battles. 



The inhabitants of Favignana are not the pro- 

 prietors of the lands which they cultivate ; for the 

 entire archipelago is the property of a noble G enoese 

 family, the Palavicini, who rarely visit this maritime 

 fief, which they govern through the agency of a 

 steward. I do not know what the rents may be 

 which are derived from the cultivation of the soil ; 

 but they cannot be very considerable, and the pro- 

 prietor, no doubt, derives the greatest part of his 

 revenues from the produce of the sea. The lords 

 of Favignana have the exclusive right of fishing 

 over a very large tract of water; while, of course, 

 they have the entire monopoly of the produce of the 

 archipelago, and these rights derive great value from 

 the vast shoals of the tunny which frequent these 

 seas. It is well known that this fish appears every 

 year in immense numbers in the neighbourhood of 

 Gibraltar, where they separate into two columns, 

 one following the shores of Africa, whilst the other 

 makes its way along the coasts of Europe. The 

 successive appearance of these shoals in different 

 localities, and their inexplicable disappearance on 

 the approach of cold weather, led for a long time 

 to the belief- that they made actual migrations, 

 similar to those of birds. In this respect the tunny 

 resembled the herring and the mackerel, which had 

 at all times been regarded as migratory fish; but 

 M. Valenciennes having confirmed by personal ob- 

 servation the doubts which had already been ad- 



