314 
TITE MEDITERRANEAN NATURALIST 
under the notice of the Minister of Customs. in 
introducing the deputation Messrs. G. D. Carter 
and J. Bosisto dwelt upon the necessity of pro- 
tecting insectivorous birds, and referred to the 
draft of laws which they proposed to enforce, laws 
where were already in operation in Great Ibitain 
and other colonies. 
One by one the veterans of science are being 
removed from the rolls by the hand of Death. On 
the 19th of December last Sir Richard Owen the 
celebrated paleontologist died at his residence at 
Sheen. 
A German physiologist claims to La-' : proved 
quite conclusively that the germs of consumption 
may be and have been conveyed from one person 
to another by the bed-bug. 
Bad news reaches us from several of the country 
districts of Malta. The &nVi&(Coronarium Itedj/sa- 
rium) one of the staple productions of the island 
is said to be badly attacked by a species of disease 
the exact nature of which is at present unkrn wn. 
This is serious indeed for according to the report 
recently drawn up by N. Tagliaferro Esqr. 16,677 
tnminoli of land are devoted to the culture of this : 
plant, and therefore should the sulla crops fail, the j 
Maltese farmer will be deprived of one of his most 
important mainstays. 
The fishing industry of the Maltese Islands has 
of late years been steadily on the decline, a fact 
that has given rise to much anxiety not only to 
that class which is immediately dependent upon it 
as a means of subsistence, but also to the public in 
general. 
During the last twenty years an uninterrupted 
process of extermination has been going on around 
the Maltese shores with the result that certain 
species of fish that were formerly very common 
are now most rare, or are never met with. The 
subject has been occupying the columns of the 
local press during the last month. It is to be 
hoped that the government of the Islands willbe 
able see its way to adopt the suggestion as to the 
advisability of either defining a sh re limit, of esta- 
blishing a civse season, or of prohibiting the use 
of those instruments which experience has shown 
to be the most injurious to the fishing interests. 
Olive culture in Southern Spain is rapidly 
declining and already many of the largest of the 
olive groves around Barcelona ha ve been replanted 
with vines. Xor is this to be v. mdered at con- 
sidering the revelations that have recently been 
made regarding the manner in which spurious 
“olive" oil is manufactured in America and Africa. 
17, •‘00,000 gallons of coto n-seed - il were manu- 
factured in the United States in 1890, and of this 
27 per cent was used for adulteration in the olive- 
oil trade. Large quantities of this and of ground- 
nut oil from Gauibia and Zanzibar were shipped 
to Leghorn in Italy, from whence, after being 
mixed with a small percentage of the oil of olive*, 
the product was again exported as pure olive-oil. 
The dromedary parcel-post service in the Ger- 
man territories of Southwestern Africa has Liven 
results better than were expected. The drome- 
daries are adapted to the climate, are no: a3e< ted 
by the prevalent cattle diseases, are not made 
footsore in stony regions, and !•> not sutler extre- 
me thirst when deprived of water for a week. 
They travel, each carrying a weight of 250 
pounds, about at fast as an ox-team. 
Naturalists have recently proved that under 
certain conditions about the virile of moulting, the 
horned toad (PArt/nosoma (•-./•ohuDw/i) ejects from 
the eye a small quantity of blood. One observer 
angered one of the toads when blood spurted from 
just above the eye to a distance of a foot, and the 
creature fell exhausted. After five or ten minutes 
renewed irritation caused a second spurting, but 
no further repetition of the effect could be 
produced. 
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