EDITORIAL GLEANINGS. 45 
in South Africa, it is not surprising to learn from a report just made to the 
Colonial Office that Monkey-skins are scarcer than formerly on the Gold 
| Coast, the increasing warfare which is carried on against these unfortunate 
/animals having resulted in a total extermination of the species in the less 
| distant provinces. In 1894 no fewer than 168,405 skins were exported, 
) valued at £41,001, whereas last year the number fell to 67,660. 
AccorpineG to the ‘Temps’ correspondent at Antananarivo, a special 
} fine net made entirely of Spiders’ webs is being manufactured in the 
} professional school at Antananarivo. The process is a very simple one. 
|The thread of several dozen Spiders is wound on winders, the quantity 
| produced by each Spider ranging from fifteen to forty yards. The covering 
| of the web is removed by repeated washing, and the web made into a 
thread of eight strands. When the thread is spun it is easily woven into a 
} gauze, which is very fine but very strong. It is to be used for an experi- 
| mental covering of a navigable balloon by M. Renard, the head of the 
| French military balloon school at Chalais, near Paris, who has been 
| engaged for many years in experimenting in aerial navigation. It is 
| believed that the difference in the weight of an ordinary covering and the 
Spiders’ web-net will make a great improvement.— Dalziel. 
A MonsTER Swordfish was brought to the market at Taiping recently. 
| It was 30 ft. long, and its flesh and bones weighed 900 catties, or 1,200 Ib., 
| fat 230 catties, entrails 400, and the sword 30 catties. Total weight, 
2,070 lb.— Penang Gazette. 
At Stevens’s well-known Sale Rooms, on the 6th December last, there 
| was sold the collection of stuffed birds formed by the late Mr. Richard 
| Ashby, of Egham. This collection was interesting as containing many 
birds that were acquired at the Henry Doubleday sale. There was also 
_ sold at the same time a skeleton of the Moa, at the price of forty-eight 
| guineas, which was really made up of “ the bones of one species,” and had 
| been set up by Capt. F. W. Hutton from the Enfield deposit, who wrote: 
“ After rejecting bones of young birds and others too imperfect for measure- 
ment, I had 1,031 leg-bones left.” The Enfield deposit was described by 
Mr. H. O. Forbes in ‘ Nature,’ March, 1892. Since then other collections 
| have been sold in mournful sequence, such as the Lepidoptera formed by 
| the late Rev. A. Matthews, of Gumley. 
ANOTHER of the monographs devoted to the ‘ North American F'auna,”’ 
and published by the United States Department of Agriculture, has reached 
