Tie Mediterranean naturalist 
a IReview of IRatural Science. 
Yol. III., No. 27 
MALTA, DECEMBER 1st. 1893. 
>/- Per annum. 
CONTENTS. 
Page 
The Tapestries of St. John’s 
Ohurch Valletta. 
1 The Tapestries of St. John Church, Valletta 435 
2 On the Orange Fly in Malta — A.C.G. 438 
3 Recent Exploration of the Maltese and Sicilian 
Caves 438 
4 Stray notes on the Natural Histoi'y of Spain— W.C. 
Hey 440 
5 Vestiges of the Phoenicians in Malta— John H. Cooke 441 
6 Stray Thoughts 446 
7 Common Beetles of the Maltese Islands— Dr. A. 
Caruana Gatto 447 
8 The Victoria Cavern, Malta— John H. Cooke 451 
9 The Orange Disease in Cape Colony— S. D. Bair- 
stow F. L. S. 453 
10 The Utilization of the Waste Lands of Malta— John 
H. Cooke 455 
11 Notes and News :— Our thanks :— Nat ura l Science.— 
The limans of Odessa 458 
12 Advertisement 458 
NOTICES. 
Subscriptions '.— Cheques or Postal Ordei's should be 
made payable to J. H. Cooke, The Lyceum, Malta. 
Subscriptions are now due. 
Special Notice. 
All subscriptions are payable in advance. 
Subscriptions to Y ol. Ill are, therefore, 
now overdue, and should be SEST to 48 
Strada Mercanti. Our rates of subscrip- 
tion are so low as not to admit of our 
employing a collector. 
The Cathedrals and collegiate churches and 
chapels of Great Britain can boast of almost endless 
variety of splendid decoration in each of the nu- 
merous materials capable of being adapted to 
purposes of ornament, stone, marble, and wood in 
every pattern of carving, every arrangement of 
colour; metal, bright and dull; precious bullion and 
simple artistically-fashioned iron; glass, glowing 
with the hues of all the fruits of Aladdin’s cave; 
and frescos or mosaics symmetrically arranged and 
artistically coloured: but save by a few conven- 
tional hangings and frontals, or here and there a 
heraldic banner, the art of the artificer with the 
needle of the loom is very sparingly represented in 
ecclesiastical adornment. In one or two of the old 
engravings of royal ceremonials in Westminster 
Abbey we do indeed find indications of hangings 
adorned with pictorial art, probably intended as a 
representation of tapestry; but there is every reason 
to believe that these were lent for the occasion, 
and merely used as temporary screens or partitions 
to ensure for the nonce a more convenient arrange- 
ment of space. 
On the other hand the art of the tapissier has 
been quite as often employed throughout the con- 
tinent of Europe on sacred subjects as on secular. 
Many of the great churches abroad are known to 
possess very fine sets of the material which at first 
denominated Aercesfrom the place of its manufac- 
ture, came to be more generally styled tapestry 
when Brussels (after the taking of the former town 
by Louis XI) established itself as the principal 
seat of the art, a distinction which it long retained 
in spite of the rivalry of the factories established 
in France, in Italy, and in England. There are, 
for instance, it is safe to assert, no finer specimens 
of the textile art than the arrazzi or hangings still 
preserved in a British dependency, the island of 
Malta, belonging to the conventual church of 
26 
