THE MEDITERRANEAN NATURALIST 
327 
wet and innocuous in winter, a suitable nidus for 
growth of germs in a damp state in spring and 
autumn, and being in summer time dry and un- 
trapped would appear to be favourable sources for 
the disengagement of aerial exhalations. 
( b ) The floors of many uncemented basements 
and underground hovels, built centuries ago, and 
many of the open spaces in our towns and villages 
are soaked with organic matter, and are likewise 
alternately wet and dry according to the season of 
the year. 
(c) The water of our tideless harbour is regularly 
contaminated by ships, etc. and would more espe- 
cially in the enclosed creeks seem a likely danger 
to our soldiers and sailors, who not only frequent- 
ly bathe there, but use this water when washing 
down decks, and who are at times exposed to 
exhalations from its foetid mud during dredging 
and other operations. 
(d) Lastly such points of a general sanitary 
nature, but most important in this particular ins- 
tance from the probable aerial nature of the poi- 
son, such as leaky or improperly rendered cesspits 
unflushed k faulty drains, and above all insuffi- 
ciently high ventilators connected with either 
sewer or surface water drains. 
These last causes are daily and rapidly disap- 
pearing from Malta thanks to the energy of our 
Government Sanitary Department and I hope in 
the future that the study of this fever on the 
above lines may banish or considerably lessen the 
occurrence of fever in Malta and indeed the whole 
Mediterranean. 
( to he contin ued) 
Science Gleanings. 
Live lobsters, intended to stock New Zealand 
waters, have been successfully transported from 
England in cold chambers. The humble-bees taken 
to New' Zealand several years ago have increased 
wonderfully, and salmon ova have been similarly 
introduced with promising results. 
Australasia is the wonderland of the student, 
on account of the numerous forms of ancient life 
that it has preserved. A new’ addition is found 
in the herrings of certain rivers of New South 
Wales, which prove to be doubly armored, having 
a row of scutes on the back resembling the ordi- 
nary armature on the belly. This peculiarity is 
is found elsewhere only in extinct herrings of the 
late Cretaceous and early Tertiary periods. 
It is estimated that over 19,000,000 persons have 
been killed in the wars between civilized countries 
in the past century, and 1200,000,000 during the 
last thirty centuries. Flammarion, the astronomer 
calculates that the entire number of corpses 
would bridge the channel from France to England 
while the heads alone would form a continuous 
band reaching six times around the world. 
Recent studies of cancer not only indicate that 
it is an organic growth but almost certainly prove 
it is itself liable to the attacks of another parasite 
Better acquaintance with the relations of these 
patasites may possibly bring the long-sought 
method of arresting cancer. 
Like other large animals, the elephant is being 
exterminated. Reproduction is slow, while ivory- 
hunters are slaughtering 75,000 a year in Africa. 
Mr. A. G. Poverli, F. Z. S., suggests an effort to 
i iducehuters to capture the animals alive and saw 
off the tusks. The tusks are solid, and the process 
would be a humane and painless one. 
The doubling of the lines — unfortunately 
called canals — of Mars has been experimentally 
reproduced by M. Stanislaus Meunier as an optical 
effect, and he concludes that transparent clouds 
may account for the phenomenon observed only 
by Schiaparelli and a very few others. 
A wh i msical- appearing theory, to the effect 
that the female yew is harmless to cattle while 
the male plant is poisonous, has been investigated 
at an English agricultural college by Lieut Stuart 
Wortly. Chemical analysis confirms the belief, 
that taxin, the supposed poisonous principle is 
confined chiefly or entirely in the male plant. An 
earlier writer has mentioned that the leaves grow 
poisonous with age. 
