116 
THE MEDITERRANEAN NATURALIST 
Turks with, the other bishops in 1823. If we may 
trust to tradition, he was probably the ablest man 
•who ever occupied the archipiscopal see. The 
portrait is a striking one, and was executed, I think, 
in Wallachia, where he had been sent on a mission 
when only a young member of the monastery of 
Mackera. 
If time did not fail me, I should like to prolong 
this subject, and to take you with me in imagina- 
tion to some of the beautiful spots which are to be 
found in Cyprus, to enter the houses and see the 
towns people at their avocations, the women weav- 
ing silk at the primitive looms, of which specimens 
were shown in the Colonial Exhibition three years 
ago ; to visit die villages; to listen to the shepherds 
piping to their flocks; to follow the mountain 
racks, where amidst the murmuring of the streams, 
by the side of a hazel copse, or under a shady 
old walnut tree, you might listen to the cawing of 
of the crows and imagine yourself in England. B it 
there is something besides time that fails me, and 
tl at is the capacity to do justice to the infinite 
variety of scenery which Cyprus affords, to depict 
adequately the charm of travelling through every 
part of the island, pitching one’s tent in every 
variety of spot; now' on a village green; now on a 
mountain side; one day in the depths of the silent 
; ‘orests, another day by a babbling stream under 
the shade of magnificent palm-trees; or again 
seeking shelter from the sun in the old refectory of 
the. monks of Bella Pais. 
If my failure to depict such scenes would induce 
any of you to go and visit them for yourselves, 
you would be amply repaid. Tho exhilarating air 
imparts a peculiar charm to the scenery, which is 
heightened by the simplicity and hospitality of the 
villagers. To be in a country so near to civiliza- 
tion, and yet where news from the outside world 
arrives only once a fortnight, and where there are 
no railways ! Such is the place to refresh the mind 
wearied with daily papers, telegrams, sensational 
news, and advertisements, with the postman com- 
ing ten times a day with letters which you don’t 
want to get. 
It is t remarkable fact that most of those who 
nave been resident in Cyprus want to go back to it 
again. For my own part there is no country which 
I would so gladly revisit for a holiday, and I can 
therefore conscientiously recommend it 10 those 
who wish to escape from England during the 
trying months of January to April in this country. 
The Samos fossil Mammals. 
The labours of Prof. C. J. Forsyth Major in 
the Tertiary beds of Samos, a small island in 
the Turkish Archipelago, lying opposite the town 
of Ephesus, were repaid by the discovery of a 
most unique series of fossil remains of mammals. 
The collection, which was the result of his 
three years work, was lately purchased by the 
trustees cf the British Museum, and it has been 
deposited by them in the South Kensington 
Natural History Department. 
In an account of these remains that was sent 
to Nature a correspondent gives a most detailed 
description both of the remains and of the de- 
posits in which they were found to occur. He 
tells us lk that the deposit appears to be absolutely 
full of the hones of mammals; and in this res- 
pect it agrees with the contemporary deposits of 
the celebrated Pikermi ravine near Athens, the 
wonderful mammalian fauna of which has been 
fully made known to us by the labours and 
writings of Prof : Albert Gaudry, of the Paris 
Museum, and other paleontologists”. 
He then proceeds, to say that the deposits at 
Samos have, one great advantage over those of 
Pikermi. Thus, in the latter locality the rock 
in which the bones are embedded is stained of 
a brownish-red colour, and very frequently adheres 
so closely to the bones that they cannot be 
properly cleaned from matrix; whereas in the 
case of Samos the rock is of a huffish- white, 
and can be completely removed from the speci- 
mens. This whitish colour of the Samos bones 
renders them peculiarly attractive objects in a 
museum ; and the contrast between the white 
bones and the palebrown of the enamel of the 
teeth in the magnificent series of skulls now 
displayed in the Museum is very striking. So 
well preserved, indeed, are these specimens that 
many of the skulls are almost as well suited for 
precise anatomical comparison as those of existing 
species. 
The number of specimens from these deposits 
acquired by the Museum, is no less than 533; 
