contrary being entirely black, while some have been | noticed black, with a white head or wings only.

The situations chosen by this bird for the rearing of its progeny, are such as most conveniently offer themselves in the vicinity of dwellings. They appear to select such localities on account of the greater number of insects to be found there. These, together with worms, larvæ, and fruits, form their chief food, for it is only when impelled by hunger that they have recourse to carrion. Like the raven and the pie, they have a strong disposition to hide whatever they can get possession of, and thus their nests are sometimes found to contain a strange medley of articles. The The nest of the jackdaw is generally made of sticks, but is lined with softer materials than that of the rook, such as fine grass and wool. As we have already intimated, the bird is not slow to appropriate whatever may come in his way for this purpose: thus we are told that a large piece of lace was carried off by a jackdaw to his nest, in the ruins of Holyrood chapel, Edinburgh, and that a soldier having undertaken to recover it, not only succeeded in doing so, but found there other stolen goods, i. e., a child's cap, a frill, part of a worsted stocking, a silk handkerchief, and several fragments of articles, the original form of which, on account of their tattered state, could not be ascertained. This bird is, as Cowper says,

A great frequenter of the church:

his favourite nesting-place is evidently in old towers, and from thence we oftenest hear his peculiar cry, which is well expressed by the name given to him in Scotland-kae.

Britain, made daily excursions of about six miles to the warm grounds by the sea-side, and in their flight passed over a deep ravine, in the rocky side of which there were the rooks on their morning flight was heard at the ravine. many jackdaws, I have observed that when the cawing of the jackdaws, which had previously been still and quiet, instantly raised their shriller notes, and flew out to join the rooks, both parties clamouring loudly, as if welcoming each other; and that, on the return, the time of which was no bad augury of the weather of the succeeding day, the daws accompanied the rooks a little past the ravine; then both cawed their farewell and departed. What is more singular, I have seen, too frequently for its being merely accidental, a daw return for a short time to the rocks, a rook to the daws, or one from each race meet between, and be noisy together for a space after the bands had separated.

Jackdaws may be easily tamed, and in a short time they grow so domesticated in their habits as seldom to attempt to escape. They seem to be quite at home in the society of man, can be taught with no great difficulty to articulate several words, and soon display their boldness of disposition by a thousand mischievous tricks. These chiefly consist in carrying off and hiding portions of food, and (what looks like intentional mischief, as the articles can be of no use to them) articles of jewellery and pieces of money. The same character for pilfering is given to the jackdaw tribe in every part of the world.

In the island of Ceylon (says Dr. Stanley) these birds are extremely impudent and troublesome, and it is found very difficult to exclude them from the houses, which, on account of the heat, are built open, and much exposed to intruders. In the town of Colombo, where they are in the habit of picking up bones and other things from the streets and yards, and carrying them to the tops of the houses, a battle usually takes place for the plunder, to the great annoyance of the people below, on whose heads they shower down the loosened tiles, leaving the roofs exposed to the weather. They frequently snatch bread and meat from the dining table, even when it is surrounded with guests, always seeming to prefer the company of man, as they are continually seen hopping about near houses, and rarely to be met with in woods and retired places. They are, however, important benefactors to the Indians, making ample compensation for their intrusion and knavery, for they are all voracious devourers of carrion, and consume all sorts of dirt, offal, and dead vermin: they in fact carry off those substances which, if allowed to remain, would in that hot climate produce the most noxious smells, and probably give rise to putrid disorders. On this account they are much esteemed by the natives; their mischievous tricks and impudence are put up with, and they are never suffered to be shot or otherwise molested.

The eggs of the jackdaw are usually five or six in number, smaller and paler than those of the crows, of a bluish or greenish ground, spotted with black or brown. The female is very assiduous in watching and rearing her young, and in this task she is assisted by her mate. Many pairs generally nestle in steeples they have been known to take up their abode the same neighbourhood, and in default of towers and in chimneys, dry banks, and even in the burrows of

KING THEODORIC, when advised by his courtiers to debase the coin, declared that nothing which bore his image should ever lie. Happy would it be for the interests of society, if, having as much proper self-respect as this good monarch had, we would resolve never to allow our looks or our words to bear any impress but that of strict

18. ANTIQUITIES.

In the historical sketch which we gave of Malta, we traced the island through the possession, successively, of the Tyrians, Carthaginians, Romans, Goths, Arabs, Normans, Knights of St. John, French, and English. Each of them held the island during a considerable period, with the exception of the French, and left behind them traces of their several languages, habits, architecture, &c. The language of the Maltese is an oral one, that is, spoken only, and not written in permanent characters,-and it has consequently possessed no means of recording its own changes. The habits of a people are as transient, but the architecture, the public and private buildings, coins, domestic hardware, funereal memorials, &c., are less destructible; these remain to tell their tale to after ages, and are to us the most living history of the past. Stemming the stream of time, let us try to reach records of Maltese history that are not to be found in the pages of ancient chroniciers.

The good Queen Dowager of England is now building a Protestant church at Valetta; the British parliament erected a fine hospital on Bighi Point: these and other works will record to future ages the dominion of the English nation over Malta. The power of the French was too limited in point of time, and we may justly add, too unprincipled, to leave any record but that of ruin. The stupendous fortifications of Valetta; the Cotonera; the Aqueduct; the domestic palaces, which it is sad to see tenanted only by impoverished, and often noble families; the mosaic church of St. John;-these are the proper monuments of the Knights.

The one Norman church that remained to tell of the sway of Roger, the conqueror of Sicily, was destroyed in 1832; but there still exist many remarkable relics of early Christian art of the thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, during which period these islands were attached to Sicily. Giuseppe Hyzler, a Maltese artist of great talent, has lately made 300 finished drawings of the most valuable of these works, which are, for the most part, wholly unknown to Europe. Mr. Hyzler enumerates, Firstly, Paintings in fresco, which adorn the wall of the crypts, or subterranean chapels which served as places of worship to the early Christians. The crypt of St. Agatha, the patroness of Malta, is hewn in the living rock, and the walls were decorated with twenty-four figures nearly as large as life. Of these, some are almost entirely effaced by damp, or crumbling of the rock; of others, enough remains to show the inimitable grace, and purity of design and expression, which characterize the early specimens of the Tuscan school of painting. The colouring (we are quoting from Mr. Hyzler), where not corroded, is as gorgeous and harmonious as a Venetian picture, and the fresco, for hardness and polish of surface, equal to the most celebrated of Italy.

Secondly, There are paintings on wood, cotemporaneous with the frescos. There are several curious specimens of the Byzantine school; we may particularly mention the picture of St. Paul in the cathedral at Città Vecchia, the drapery of which, in conformity with a practice introduced at a later age of Byzantine art, is covered with massive silver in relief, the lines of the folds exactly corresponding with those of the painting beneath.

Thirdly, Tarsia, or inlaid wood. This art was carried to perfection by the great masters of Italy in the fifteenth century, and a few of the most admirable productions now remain. They were the first to yield to the desolating effects of war, or to the accidents of fire. The ground is composed of the noce, or black walnut wood of Sicily. We have already spoken of a fine specimen of this work in the cathedral of Città Vecchia.

Mr. Hyzler's labours prove the remarkable fact, that painting was cultivated in the island of Malta at the same time that it gave signs of revival in Italy, and that it continued to advance with equal strides so long as circumstances permitted.

We know of no Arabian or Gothic traces to detain us, unless we except the sepulchral grottos in the Benjemma mountains; but not having visited these, we cannot give

any opinion as to the period at which they were excavated. The catacombs of Città Vecchia also belong to a doubtful era. They are hewn out of the solid rock, and contain a labyrinth of galleries which are said to extend several miles in length. We traversed them for a very considerable distance, but were constantly impeded in our progress by walls abruptly built up to prevent, so our guides informed us, the curious traveller losing his way amidst the intricate passages. We saw reason to believe that these catacombs had been used as a place of refuge for the living, at a period doubtless subsequent to the age when they offered an asylum for the dead.

Fragments of Roman marbles and coins are frequently found. In a former Supplement we mentioned that a coin, bearing the female figure of Britannia, which had been struck for the Roman colony of Britain, was found in a sepulchral urn at Gozo.

The Carthaginian and Tyrian periods of Maltese history are associated with the foundation of the old city of Rabbato in Gozo, and of Città Vecchia in Malta,-but from whom did the Tyrians, the first recorded possessors of Malta, wrest these islands? Were they then for the first time peopled? or did the Celts live there before that era? The Celts are the most ancient inhabitants that can be traced in Western Europe. It is to them that we refer the oldest ruins that exist in Britain; and if we could find remains in Malta or Gozo similar to the Celtic or Druidical erections that are extant in our own country, we should be fully justified in referring them to this primeval family of Europe.

The most ancient specimens of Cyclopic walling to be found in Greece is near Mycenæ. It is composed of huge masses of rock roughly hewn and piled together, with the interstices at the angles filled up with small stones, but without mortar or cement of any kind. Whether this was the work of Phoenician colonists, or of the earlier Celtic inhabitants, is not yet determined, although the opinions of the learned lean strongly in favour of the latter. According to Professor Heeren, the Phoenician colonists arrived in Greece between 1600 and 1400 before Christ.

Thus it is seen that the roughly hewn rockwork of Mycenae is considered Celtic; but, in the Maltese islands, huge unhewn blocks are set up after the fashion of Druidical structures, now endways, now lengthways-and in one instance with a transverse block above, exactly as at Stonehenge, leaving in the mind of the beholder no doubt as to their Celtic origin.

The "Giant's Tower" at Gozo is one of the most remarkable of these structures. We are happily enabled to give a ground plan of this curious enclosure, and as we measured every stone for ourselves upon the spot with the patient temper of an antiquary, we have reason to believe that the proportion of the several parts is retained with considerable accuracy. One glance at the plan will give the reader a clearer idea of the place than a personal visit would without it, for the immense thickness of the walls, and their broken condition, prevent the observer connecting together in his own mind the relative position of the parts. The exterior, also, is so rugged-masses of rude rock thrown as it were upon one another-that the traveller might easily pass it by as no other than nature's order of architecture. Such, indeed, had long been its fate, for the resident told us that, not many years since, he remembered shooting over the spot, at which time it had scarcely attracted any attention, and that since then he himself had caused the interior to be excavated.

Suppose a rough block of stone, (take for example the largest in the ruin, which is 19 feet 9 inches long, and 10 feet broad, and of a proportionate thickness,) placed horizontally upon the ground, and another block set up endways, close to the former, and so on, alternately, one lengthways, and the next upright; and upon this foundation imagine other masses of lesser magnitude piled irregularly, and without cement, and the reader will have a tolerable idea of the exterior wall of the Giant's Tower. In this way is described a greater curve of 196 feet, and a

*So called because supposed to belong to the fabulous age of the Cy ops, which were imaginary one-eyed and monstrous giants.

iesser curve of 136 feet 5 inches, and an irregular frontage of 118 feet 7 inches,-making altogether a circumference of 451 feet. In the frontage are two entrances, each leading into two enclosures, the arrangement and relative size and form of which will be immediately understood by reference to the plan.

The enclosures are small compared with the extent of the external walls, the intermediate space being filled up with rubbish, and forming one solid wall of amazing strength. | It would seem that resistance from without had been far more an object with the builders than what we might naturally suppose necessary for the celebration of religious rites within, the purpose for which tradition says the place was used. It is said that the sea at one time came much nearer to it than at present, and that people landed here to worship. Names have been given to different parts that follow out the same idea; besides the recesses called altars, a slightly concave surface in the pavement of the largest enclosure is pointed out as the spot where burnt sacrifices were offered. On the other hand, the rock-like strength of the external walls; the narrow entrances, on the sides of which are large holes, in one instance a foot in diameter, for bars or chains for the purpose of securing the passage; and the very name of the Giant's Tower, would all seem to denote a place of refuge;—and such indeed might have been the double end of the religious temples of the earlier ages; the outward security offered by a building made with hands, might have been the type of future peace, the promise of their faith.

The external walls of the Giant's Tower, together with a circular enclosure near to the same spot, as well as some ruins upon the south coast of Malta, similar to those at Gozo, we refer with confidence to the Celtic era of Maltese history, previous both to the Tyrian and Carthaginian; but there are certain portions of the Giant's Tower which we cannot but consider as additions made at a later age. The doorways, the altars so called, a portion of the internal walls, as well as the pavements, are composed of stones neatly hewn, and belong altogether to a later period. In the largest enclosure, which is 74 feet in length, and of which we have given a sketch which we took on the spot, is pointed out a bas-relief, said to represent a dog-fish; and in the adjoining compartment there is an elegant scroll, sculptured in a masterly manner upon the surface of some hewn stones. No coins have been found in these excavations.

We commenced our history with the earliest written records of Malta, and brought it down to our own times: we then retraced our steps backwards to a still earlier period, taking the existing relics of antiquity as our guide: turning from the past to the present, let us now regard the natural and artificial products of the islands, the character and habits of the natives, and their commercial resources.

19 NATURAL HISTORY.

Without hedges, and with but few trees, and these only of a shrubby size, the eye of an Englishman at first sadly misses his green fields and lofty forest trees; but after a short residence upon the island, the wild carob-tree, the paper, and common, mulberry-tree, the Indian and Asiatic fig, the cotton-plant, canes and palms, groves of orange, lemon, and olive trees; these and many others, by their matchless luxuriance of fruit and flower, and by contrast with the burning soil out of which they spring, dispossess from the chief place in the observer's mind the unvaried and monotonous garb of green that clothes the lowland landscapes of more temperate climes.

There are no trees of large size, because the soil is not of sufficient depth to afford either nourishment enough or anchorage against the winds, that blow here sometimes with the fury of a hurricane. There is no general verdure to comfort the eye, except in winter and spring, because the temperature which ripens tropical fruits is intolerable to the vegetation of European plants. These two facts stated and accounted for, we have said all that can be brought to detract from the capabilities and beauty of the Maltese country. On the other hand, the winter at Malta is like an English spring, and the spring is the parallel of our summer, but the summer and autumn are altogether African and Asiatic. The unbroken weather seems indeed more like one "long bright golden day," than the uncertain season which we call summer.

A day of March at Malta has thus been described, and will prove that this spot is not destitute of beauty that is familiar to us here in our daily paths. "Now the air is

charged with perfumes, above all with that of the intoxicating orange-flower; the May, which in England hardly makes good its name, is shedding its white blossoms, and losing its fresh odour; violets are gone; roses, carnations, jessamine, honeysuckles, stocks, wallflowers are in full beauty. The rose of Malta, matchless for its rich and delicate perfume, may be had in favoured spots all the year, but now it is coming out in every garden. Its fragrance is like the most luxurious attar, tempered by the delicate freshness of nature. Every crevice of the rock has nursed some small wild flower, which is now gratefully adorning its sterile cradle. The blue anemone, and the bright scarlet pheasant's-eye, and the tall white lily, and many more, are gone. The small blue iris, which seems to spring out of the bare and solid rock, is in all its beauty; with a hundred more whose names I do not know. The crimson sulla, or clover, the handsomest of crops, is disappearing, field after field, and the gorgeous carpet of crimson and green before another week will be converted into hay. Making hay for the summer, is one of the expressions that startles an English ear."

The fourth verse of the third chapter of St. Matthew is well illustrated at Malta:-"And the same John had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey." The capote, as seen upon the quay of Valetta upon the Greek, and occasionally the Maltese, is made, either of goat's hair, or of long white shaggy wool, and seems to answer exactly to our ideas of the raiment of the Baptist; while, as regards his food, wild honey is frequently met with in every part of the Levant, and whether the locusts mentioned in the sacred text were the insects we know by that name, or the fruit of the tree so called, it matters little; both are to be seen at Malta, and the living habits of to-day concur to fill up the picture represented in the above verse, for both the insect and the fruit are still eaten as food.

The locust, the insect, is frequently seen at Malta, but rarely in considerable numbers, and we are not aware that it is ever eaten by the Maltese; but in countries where it is more abundant-in Arabia, for example-it is considered a delicacy. "We saw locusts," says Niebuhr, "put into bags or on strings, in several parts of Arabia. In Barbary they are boiled, and then dried upon the roofs of the houses. The Bedouins of Egypt roast them alive, and devour them with the utmost rapacity." Jackson says they taste like prawns. But the locust-tree, so common in Malta and Palestine, produces a hard dry seed, which is eaten by the poorest, for want of bread. This fruit is still considered hard fare, and the purport of detailing the food of St. John was evidently to portray his abstinent habits of life; and this indifferent substitute for bread would have been a more natural concomitant with the wild honey than the prawn-like locusts. Such minute questions as these, however, are wholly unworthy of debate upon religious grounds: as historical facts, indeed, it is curious to observe in what respects the habits of past generations were like those of to-day. This gives life to history; but to bring such petty facts as proofs of the authenticity of Scripture is like obtruding tithes of mint and anise and cummin, and neglecting the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith. If these do not satisfy the reader's convictions, insisted upon as they are in the Bible, with a power unknown in any human system of the narrative and prevailing customs compel him "to do ethics, neither will minute and curious coincidences between justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with his God."

The caper-plant grows abundantly upon the walls of Valetta. Various medicinal plants are found here; the bitter or squirting cucumber, the squill, the castor-oil plant, &c.; but the most curious vegetable production of these islands is the Fungus Melitensis,

Most general readers are acquainted with the gigantic flower discovered by Dr. Arnold in 1818, and named after him and Sir Stamford Raffles, with whom he travelled; but few are aware that the Mediterranean produces a similar plant, small indeed, but belonging to the same natural vegetable division. The Maltese champignon, or mushroom of Malta, the Fungus Melitensis of old botanists, and the Cynomarium coccineum of modern ones, is no mushroom properly so called, but an extremely curious production, agreeing with the Rafflesia Arnoldi, and a few others, in the following particulars,

These plants have no proper roots of their own, and they derive their nourishment from the vegetables on which they

* Quoted from the Athenæum, No. 550, p. 344.