124 
THE MEDITERRANEAN NATURALIST 
ven on the Italian Coast and wrecked. Finding a 
genial climate the birds established themselves 
and rapidly spread over Southern Europe. In 
colour, these Mediterranean birds differ consider- 
able from the typical cage canary. As a rule they 
are of a brown colour, shading off into grey and a 
greenish yellow and they have strong, rich, mellow 
voices. 
For all practical purposes the Mediterranean 
may be accepted as being, what it is popularly 
supposed ?to be, a tideless sea, but it is not so in 
reality. In many places there is a distinct rise 
and fall, though this is more frequently due to 
winds and currents than to lunar attraction. At 
Venice there is a rise of from one to two feet in 
spring tides, according to the prevalence of winds 
up or down the Adriatic, but in that sea itself the 
tides are so weak that they can hardly be recogni- 
sed, except during the prevalence of the Bora, our 
old friend Boreas , which generally 7 raises a sur- 
charge along the coast of Italy. In many straits 
and narrow arms of the sea there is a periodical 
flux and reflux, but the only place where tidal 
influence, properly so called, is unmistakably ob- 
served is in. the Lesser Syrtis, or Gulf of Gabes. 
There the ride runs at the rate of two or three 
knots an hour, and the rise and fall varies from 
th ree to eight feet. It is most marked and regular 
at Djerba, the Homeric island of the Lotophagi. 
One must be careful in landing there in a boat, so 
as not to be left high and dry a mile or two from 
the shore. Perhaps the companions of Ulysses 
were caught by the receding tide, and it was not 
only 7 a banquet of dates, the “honey-sweet fruit of 
the lotus,” or the potent wine which is made from 
it, which made them forgetful of their homeward 
way. 
Discovery of the remains of a fossil whale 
near Citta Vecchia. 
Some-time since a discovery of an unusually 
interesting description was made in one of the low 
cliff sections of a held situated midway between 
Notabile and Casal Dingli. 
It consisted of a portion of the body, ribs, and 
vertebrae of a fossil cetacean. 
The remains were found in the transition bed 
which is subjacent to the deposit that forms the 
capping of all of the hills of Malta and Gozo; and 
which is known as the Upper Coralline Limestone. 
This transition bed is unusually pregnant with the 
remains of the former inhabitants of the waters in 
which the Maltese Island were built up. 
Sharks’ teeth belonging to ten distinct species, 
crabs, and the remains of numerous tribes of shell 
fish are plentifully distributed throughout it. 
In the present instance, the men employed in 
the exhumation of this interesting relic of bygone 
ages, were not careful enough in developing the 
skeleton and the result was that only a portion of 
it was obtained; and even that is in a somewhat 
fragmentary condition. 
It has been conveyed to the Museum of the 
Malta University, "where it may now be seen. The 
most important parts viz: the jaws and the caudal 
vertebras have not yet been discovered and it is 
therefore needful to exercise some caution before 
committing oneself to an opinion. 
These deficiencies have rendered the work of 
determining the species to which it belonged, 
somewhat doubtful; though enough has been 
discovered to afford approximate, if not conclusive, 
evidence of the genus. 
There seems no reason to doubt but that the 
remains are those of a member of one of the 
numerous families of cetaceans that frequented 
the sea which formerly rolled over the area now 
known to us as the Maltese Islands. 
Of these, the remains of the dugong,the menatee 
(the mermaid, beloved of poets and fable-mongers) 
the dolphin, and those of several species of whales 
have been found to be specially abundant. 
The present specimen is small one, being not 
more than 10 or 12 feet in length, and when 
compared with the remains of some that have 
been discovered at Chelmus in Gozo and other 
parts of the Islands, is must be accounted but a 
midget. Dr. Adams records the discovery of a 
tooth belonging to a carnivorous whale, Zeu- 
glodon Cetoides, an animal which was not less 
than 60 or 70 feet in length. 
Such a monster as this must indeed have been 
the terror of the seas in which it lived. It is now, 
happily 7 extinct. 
To the reflective mind discoveries of this kind 
will serve to furnish ample food for the speculative 
faculties. They afford conclusive evidence of tie 
great changes and oscillations of level that these 
islands have undergone in ages, which, geologically 
speaking, are yet quite recent; and by 7 the irrefu- 
table character of their arguments they enable us 
to glean some information of the nature of the 
physical conditions that endured prior to the 
advent of man. 
Sowildand impracticable would such asuggestion 
as this have been considered fifty years ago, that 
had it then been propounded it would have been 
unceremoniously dismissed as being no more than 
the day dream of a mere visionary; yet inductive 
reasoning, based upon such evidence as discoveries 
of this kind afford, have enabled man to make such 
strides in geological science, that the day is now 
not far distant when the physical conditions of 
the earth in prehistoric times will be as familiar 
to him as are those of his own day. 
Editor. J. H. Cooke. B.Sc., F.G.S., Malta. 
