THE MEDITERRANEAN NATURALIST 
143 
IWW 
and men had to take the honour of their f am dies 
into their own keeping. After Ravin gae complisiied 
their vendetta, the “bandits,’ as they are called, 
are accustomed to take refuge in the macchie, but 
they are never to be confounded with robbers, end 
there is no instance of strangers being molested by 
them. 
Corsica has an important ancient history, but 
time will not permit me to enter into this subject- 
in any detail. One episode, however, is especially 
interesting. Seneca passed eight years here in 
exile. A tower is pointed out on the w ^ coast of 
Cap Corse which is said to have served as his 
prison. Even the glorious views of sea and land 
which it commands could not compensate him for 
compulsory banishment from the fertile plains of 
Italy. He may therefore be pardoned for his 
petulant injustice to the physical geography of the 
island when he penned his celebrated complaint, 
thus rendered by Boswell: — 
“Corsica, whom rocks terrific bound, 
Where Nature spreads her wildest desert round, 
In vain revolving seasons cheer thy soil, 
Nor rip’ning fruits nor waving harvests smile; 
Nor blooms the olive mid the winter drear— 
The votive olive to Minerva dear. 
See Spring returning spreads her milder reign! 
Yet shoots no herb, no verdure clothes the plain, 
\ 
No cool springs to quench the traveller’s thirst 
From thy parched hills in grateful murmurs burst. 
Nor, hapless Isle! thy barren shores around, 
Is wholesome food, fair Ceres’ bounty, found. 
Nor even the last sad gift the wretched claim, 
The pile funereal and the sacred flame. 
Naught here, alas! surrounding seas enclose, 
Naught but an exile and an exile’s woes.” 
Nor is this the place even to summarise the 
modern history of the island, though nothing can 
be more interesting than the story of the Pisan 
domination, the long and tyrannical, rule of the* 
Genoese, the struggle of the islanders during four 
centuries to regain their independence, the mock 
kingdom of Theodore, the wise rule of Pasquale 
Paoli, the unfortunate English occupation, and the 
subsequent conquest of the island by France. 
0 Fossil Whale from. Oitta Vecchia. 
171th reference to the description of the fossil 
whale which appeared in the Mediterranean JSfa - 
t'l ■ : list, VoS I. No. 8. Prof. P. Van Beneden of 
Louvain writes, “I have read in the last number 
o' you; journal that a Fossil Whale has been 
discovered near Cittk Vecchia, and that several 
bones have been recognized. This discovery is 
of much interest both from a paleontological and 
a geological point of view. It was in Malta that 
the first Sou doc; on was discovered, and if these 
bones belong to a Squalodon the discovery is one 
of much, importance. 
It is desirable that these bones should be deve- 
loped with the greatest care, and solidified by a 
naturalist. 
From a geological point of view the discovery is 
equally interesting. This animal was, doubtless, 
embedded in the limestone at an epoch antece- 
dent to the time when the Mediterranean was 
connected with the Black Sea by way of the 
Bosphorus, and with the Atlantic by way of the 
Straits of Gibraltar. 
We can trace the existence of these cetaceans 
to the end of the . Miocene period during which 
time the sea swarmed with great numbers of 
them, many of which often emigrated to the 
Kara Sea, and to the White Sea. The present 
cetaceans of the Black Sea are subdivided into 
three classes, but none of them are the descen- 
dants of the ancient families. 
These three kinds have emigrated from the 
Atlantic Ocean, through the Black Sea: and nei- 
ther the Black Sea nor theMediterranean now 
contain any others than these. 
It is, therefore, of the gratest importance than 
the fossil cetaceans of the Mediterranean should 
be carefully compared with the living species.” 
Lampedusa, and its Sponge Fisheries. 
The sponge beds that were lately discovered 
off' the African coast have been the means of 
