438 
THE MEDITERRANEAN NATURALIST 
Surely it might be possible at some of those festi- 
vals of the church which occur in the winter season, 
to substitute these noble and beautiful works 
of art for the uninteresting crimson taffeta which 
incongruously destroys the effect of the stately 
sanctuary of the knights. The admiration which 
the more modern “Tenture des Indes” presented by 
the same magnificent benefactor Perellos, in 1720, 
to the palace of the Grand Master, always excites, I 
is an additional reason why connisseurs should be i 
able to compare these master pieces of the Go veil us j 
loom, the work of Le Blond, with the productions 
of the equally famous tapissier of Brussels. There is 
quite sufficient artistic feeling among the educated 
classes of Valletta to appreciate the advantages 
of such an opportunity, and we hope that pressure 
may brought to bear upon their custodians in 
the direction indicated by Sir. F. Inglott that 
these treasures of art may be redeemed from the 
oblivion in which they at present lie. 
W. Iv. E. B. 
On the Orange Fly in Malta. 
U ld-dubbiena tal la ring” is the title of an in- 
teresting pamphlet in the Maltese dialect on the 
Orange Fly which has been just been published 
by Prof. N. Tagliaferro at the expense of the 
Agricultural Society. It has been largely distribu- 
ted among fruit growers in the country districts. 
The author first gives a popular exposition of 
the life and habits of the insect in a clear and 
concise style, in the course of which he strongly 
insists on the necessity of the gathering of all rotten 
fruits that have fallen to the ground in order to 
prevent the grub from entering the soil and under- 
going therein its metamorphosis into a pupa. He 
alludes to the part which the red —breast (pettiross ) 
plays in reducing the numbers of this pest during 
the three or four months of its stay in the Island 
in winter, when it destroys great numbers of this 
fly; and he expresses an opinion that the life of this 
useful bird together with that of other insectivo- 
rous birds should be protected by local law. 
As a means of diminishing considerably the da- 
: uage caused by the orange fly all through the Island 
the author suggests a device of his own by means 
of which he appears to have succeeded in actually 
destroying in October last all the dies which 
infested the orange trees in his garden at Musta. 
Having smeared with a little honey some oranges 
in each of the two trees, which being sheltered in 
a nook of the garden were first infested, Prof. 
Tagliaferro observed that the dies quickly gathered 
round the honey and seemed to appreciate that 
treat so highly as to let themselves be struck by 
the hand without making any effort to escape. 
He succeeded also in killing hundreds of dies 
with the greatest facility by making use of the 
sticking paper known as “Fly cemetery”. If half 
a sheet of this paper be kept in one’s hand, the 
sluggish fiy is easily struck and if it tries to escape 
it sticks to the paper and is soon killed. 
We think that Prof. Tagliaferro’s suggestions, 
which are very practical, should be given a fair 
trial by all those who take interest in the subject 
of fruit growing, more particularly in the impor- 
tant industry of Malta oranges which is one of the 
chief exports of these islands. 
A. C. G. 
Recent Explorations of the Maltese and 
Sicilian Caverns. 
Some interesting progress has recently been 
made in investigating the bone-caves of Malta of 
Sicily. It has long been a matter of common belief 
that these islands are the remmants of one of the 
old land barriers connecting Europe with Northern 
Africa during at least part of the Pliocene and 
Pleistocene periods; and a detailed study of the 
animal remains met with in the fissures and ca- 
verns is thus one of the foremost importance. Not 
only is it possible to recognise the mingling of 
northern and southern animals, and the apparent 
effect of isolation upon them before their complete 
extinction as the feeding-area became more and 
more reduced by subsidence; but it also seems 
likely that some idea of the nature of recent phy- 
sical changes in the region in question can be 
obtained from a comparison of the sequence of de- 
posits in the various localities examined. The work 
in Malta has been carried on by Mr. John FI. Cooke, 
with the aid of a grant from the Royal Society of 
