static glands; but the testes in this case had not yet | on the exterior of the body, and all three canals he returned to the small size which they exhibit in winter. anterior to the pubic bones, and consequently outside the No. 2510 is a preparation showing a side view of the male pelvis.' organs of generation; and No. 2511 exhibits the male organs of Chrysochloris capensis. (Cat., vol. iv.)

The smallness of the eyes (which gave occasion to the antients to deny it the sense of sight*) is to this animal a peculiar happiness; a small degree of vision is sufficient for an animal ever destined to live underground; had these organs been larger, they would have been perpetually liable to injuries by the earth falling into them; but nature, to prevent that inconvenience, hath not only made them very small, but also covered them very closely with fur. Anatomists mention (besides these) a third very wonderful contrivance for their security, and inform us that each eye is furnished with a certain muscle, by which the animal has the power of withdrawing or exerting them, according to its exigencies.

To make amends for the dimness of its sight, the mole is amply recompensed by the great perfection of two other senses, those of hearing and of smelling: the first gives it notice of the most distant approach of danger; the other, which is equally exquisite, directs it in the midst of darkness to its food: the nose also, being very long and slender, is well formed for thrusting into small holes in search of the worms and insects that inhabit them. These gifts may with reason be said to compensate the defect of sight, as they supply in this animal all its wants and all the purposes of that sense.

·

It is supposed that the verdant circles so often seen in grass-grounds, called by country-people fairy rings, are owing to the operations of these animals, who, at certain seasons perform their burrowings by circumgyrations, which, loosening the soil, give the surface a greater fertility and rankness of grass than the other parts within or without the ring.

The mole breeds in the spring, and brings four or five young at a time it makes its nest of moss, and that always under the largest hillock, a little below the surface of the ground. It is observed to be most active, and to cast up most earth, immediately before rain, and in the winter before a thaw, because at those times the worms and insects begin to be in motion and approach the surface on the contrary, in very dry weather this animal seldom or never forms any hillocks, as it penetrates deep after its prey, which at such seasons retires far into the ground. During summer it runs in search of snails and worms in the night time among the grass, which makes it the prey of owls. The mole shows great art in skinning a worm, which it always does before it eats it; stripping the skin from end to end, and squeezing out the contents of the body.'

Thus far Pennant: but the most diligent and instructive historian of the mole is Henri Le Court, who, flying from the terrors that came in the train of the French revolution, buried himself in the country, and, from the attendant on a court, became the biographer of this humble animal. The discoveries of this indefatigable observer have been laid before the public in the work of De Vaux (1803), and a summary of them by Geoffroy St. Hilaire, in the Cours d'Histoire Naturelle des Mammifères. The latter visited Le Court for the purpose of testing his observations, and appears to have been charmed by the facility and ingenuity with which Le Court traced and demonstrated the subterrannean labours of this obscure worker in the dark.

One of the experiments which Le Court made afforded ample proof of the rapidity with which the mole will travel along its passages. He watched his opportunity, and when the mole was out on its feed at one of the most distant points from its sanctuary or fortress, to which point the mole's high road leads, Le Court placed along the course of that road between the mole and the fortress several little camp-colours, so to speak, the staff of each being a straw and the flag a bit of paper, at certain distances, the straws penetrating down into the passage. Near the end of the subterraneous road he inserted a horn, the mouth-piece of which stood out of the ground. When all was ready, Le Court blew a blast loud enough to fright all the moles within hearing from their propriety, and the little gentleman in velvet, whose presence at the spot he had well ascertained, was affected accordingly. Down went the little flags in succession with an astonishing celerity, as the horrified mole, rushing along towards his sanctuary, came in contact with the flag-straws; and such mettle had terror put into the animal's heels, that the spectators

*• Aut oculis capti fodero cubilia talpæ.' Virg., Georg. i., 183.

affirmed that its swiftness was equal to the speed of a horse at a good round trot.

This experiment was perfectly satisfactory as to the auditory and travelling powers of the mole; but another made by Le Court equally proved that the amount of vision possessed by the animal is amply sufficient for its wants, and that, with all the imperfections of this sense, its sight warns it of danger. Le Court took a spare waterpipe or gutter open at both ends. Into this pipe he introduced several moles, successively. Geoffroy St. Hilaire stood by to watch the result, at the farther end of the tube. As long as the spectators stood motionless, the introduced mole made the best of his way through the pipe and escaped; but if they moved, or even raised a finger, the mole stopped and then retreated. Several repetitions of the experiment produced the same results.

But we must describe the mole's domain. The principal point is the habitation, or, as it has been termed, the fortress, and is constructed under a considerable hillock raised in some secure place, often at the root of a tree, under a bank, or any shelter that offers protection. The fortress is domed by a cement, so to speak, of earth which has been beaten and compressed by the architect into a compact and solid state. Within, a circular gallery is formed at the base, and communicates with a smaller upper gallery by means of five passages, which are nearly at equal distances. Within the lower and under the upper of these galleries is the chamber or dormitory, which has access to the upper gallery by three similar passages. From this habitation, we should here observe, the high road by which the proprietor reaches the opposite end of the encampment extends, and the various galleries or excavations open into this road, which the mole is continually carrying out and extending in its search for food, and which has been termed its hunting-ground. But to return to the chamber. From it another road extends, the direction of which is downward at first, and that for several inches, when it again rises to open into the high road of the territory. Some eight or nine other passages open out from the external circular gallery, but the orifices of these never come opposite to the passages which connect the external gallery with the internal and upper gallery. The extent of these passages is greater or less, according to circumstances, and they each return by an irregular and semicircular route, opening at various distances from the habitation into the high road, which differs considerably from all the other passages and excavations, both in construction and with regard to the use to which it is applied. From the habitation this road is carried out nearly in a straight line and forms the main passage of communication between the habitation, the different portions of the encampment, and the alleys leading to the hunting-ground which open into it on each side. In diameter it exceeds the body of a mole, but its size will not admit of two moles passing each other. The walls, from the reiterated pressure of the mole's sides against them, become smooth and compact, and its course is remarkable for the comparative absence of mole-hills, which are frequent in connection with the alleys and quarries, as they have been termed, in constructing which the earth is removed out of the way to the surface. Sometimes a mole will lay out a second or even a third road in order to the extension of its operations. Sometimes several individuals use one road in common, though they never trespass on each other's hunting-grounds. In the event of common usage, if two moles should happen to meet, one must retreat into the nearest alley, unless both should be pugnacious, in which case, the weakest is often slain. In forming this tunnel, the mole's instinct supplies the place of science, for he drives it at a greater or less depth, according to the quality of the soil, or concurrent circumstances. When there is nothing superincumbent threatening a disturbance of its security, it is often excavated at a depth of some four or five inches; but if it is carried under a road or a stream, a foot and a half of earth, sometimes more, is left above it. Thus does the little animal carry on the subterraneous works necessary for his support, travelling, and comfort; and his tunnels never fall in.

The alleys opening out from the sides of the high road have generally a somewhat downward inclination from their commencement towards their end. It has been observed that when, on opening one of these alleys, a plen

tiful supply of food is found, the mole proceeds to work | distant, the animal sinks little wells in the shape of deep out branch alleys from its termination, up-heaving new perpendicular shafts, which hold water. These wells have mole-hills as it advances in quest of prey: should how- sometimes been seen brim-full. ever the soil be barren of the means of existence, the animal commences another alley at a different part of the high road. The quality and humidity of the soil, which regulate the abundance of earth-worms, determine the greater or less depth of the alleys..

During the season of love, at which time bloody battles are fought between the males, the male pursues the female with ardour through numerous divaricating superficial runs wrought out with great rapidity, termed coupling runs' and 'rutting angles' by our mole-catchers, and 'traces d'amour' by the French. The sexual attachment appears to be very strong in the moles. Le Court often found a female taken in his trap, and a male lying dead close to her. The period of gestation is two months at least, and the young are generally produced in April, but have been found from that month to August. From four to five is the general number, though from three to six have been recorded, and in one case seven* in one nest. The nest is distinct, usually distant from the habitation, and not always crowned with a hillock; but when a hillock exists, it is much larger than an ordinary mole-hill. It is constructed by enlarging and excavating the point where three or four passages intersect each other; and the bed of the nest is formed of a mass of young grass, root-fibres, and herbage. In one case, Geoffroy St. Hilaire and Le Court counted two hundred and four young wheat-blades.

In the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in London, No. 3573 of the Physiological Series is the posterior half of a pregnant mole, with the uterus and three foetuses, each about half an inch in length, exposed in situ: the ovarium is contained in a thin and transparent peritoneal capsule, around which the oviduct may be obThe main road being the highway of communication served passing in the form of an opaque, white, narrow to its different hunting-grounds, it is necessarily passed band: the uterine dilatation next the left ovarium remains through regularly in the course of the day, and it is in this open, and the foetus is exposed inclosed in its membranes; road that the mole-catcher sets his traps or practices his the other uterine dilatations are left entire; they resemble devices to intercept the animal between its habitation and blind pouches developed from one side of the uterine the alley where it is carrying on its labours. Some mole- tube. No. 3574 is the posterior extremity of the trunk of catchers will tell you that the hours when the moles move a pregnant mole, with the uterus and five fœtuses disare nine and four, and others that, near the coast, their played in situ; one of the dilated chambers of the left movements are influenced by the tides; to which state- uterine horn is laid open, and the foetus is exposed with ments the hearer is at liberty to give as much credence as its membranes. The placenta is a spongy, vascular subhe chooses. Besides the various traps which are set for them, stance, in the form of an oblong flat band, with its long there is, or very lately was, a man who travelled the coun- axis parallel to that of the foetus. One of the uterine try with a dog and destroyed them without any trap at all, chambers, with the corresponding chorionic sac, is laid by the following process: Taking his station at the pro- open in the right horn of the uterus, and the foetus is disper time and place, attended by his dog, and armed with placed. No. 3575 presents the female organs of a prega spear or spud, he waits till the dog indicates the pre- nant mole with four foetuses, each one inch and a quarter sence of the mole, and then spears or spuds the animal in length; one of these is exposed in situ in the uterine out as it moves in its run. Pointers will stop at moles as sac, two others hang suspended by their membranes and steadily as at game, when the latter are straying on the the placenta from the parietes of the uterus: in the lower of these embryos the foetal placenta is partly separated from the maternal portion, showing the fine areolar structure of the latter, which receives the foetal placentary filaments: the maternal placenta is minutely injected, but no portion of injection has passed into those foetal filaments which are here exposed; the capacity of the chorion is very little larger than the foetus which it contains. In the embryo which has been displaced from the chorionic sac, the short umbilical cord, and the characteristic form of the short and strong fossorial anterior extremities, may be discerned: the external apertures of the eyes and ears are completely closed. The canal leading from the uterine horns to the external opening of the vagina is laid open, showing the absence of any os tincæ dividing the uterus from the vagina: a bristle is passed into the urethra, which is continued through the clitoris. The author of the catalogue (Professor Owen) observes that the peculiar position of the vagina of the mole, on the outside of the pelvis, is well displayed in No. 2810, above noticed, and that by this modification the contracted pelvis offers no impediment to parturition. (Cat.)

surface.

Besides the excavations already noticed, the moles pursue another mode of hunting in light loose soils, newly sown, when gentle rains have led the earth-worms towards the surface, along which they follow the worms up, rapidly digging a shallow trench in the superficial layer of the soil. The female, when with young, is said to be principally addicted to this easier method of subsistence.

All the animal passions are strong in the mole, and it is a most voracious animal. It has been supposed that it was a vegetable as well as an animal feeder, and, as a proof of the former, the fragments of roots, &c., found in its stomach have been appealed to; but there can be no doubt that these vegetable matters had been conveyed into the stomach with the earth-worms (their favourite food) and the larvae of insects. The structure of its teeth indicates that its food should be animal, and indeed mice, lizards, frogs, and even birds have been known to fall victims to its voracity; but it eschews toads even when pressed by hunger, deterred probably by the acrid secretion of their skin. [FROGS, vol. x., p. 493.] All doubts as to the carnivorous nature of the mole have however been removed by the experiments of M. Flourens, who found that moles restricted to carrots, turnips, various kinds of herbs, and vegetable substances which were abundantly supplied to them, died of hunger. The mole indeed appears to require much nourishment, and a short fast proves fatal to it.

We must not omit to notice the provision of this animal to secure a supply of water, for its voracity makes it a great drinker. If a pond or ditch be at hand in those cases where many moles use the same common highway, a run is always formed to the reservoir: when it is too

Heavy charges have been brought against the mole by agriculturists and horticulturists, and the more grave accusation of being ancillary to the destruction of dykes has been in some instances proved upon it. Mr. Bell, in his interesting History of British Quadrupeds, sums up the evidence against it and in its favour thus:- In order to arrive at a true solution of the question, it is necessary to divest our minds as well of the prepossessions of the naturalist as of the prejudices of the agriculturist; for we shall probably find, as in most other cases, that the truth lies between the two extremes. According to its accusers, Loudon's Magazine of Nat. Hist.,' vol. viii.

that as both species are inhabitants of Europe, the original
trivial name Europea should be dropped, and Brisson's
| name, vulgaris, be adopted for the common species.
For Dr. Richardson's account of the true moles brought
from America, see the article SORECIDE, vol. xxii., p. 265.
FOSSIL MOLES.

The fossil remains of the mole have been found in the bone-caverns; as, for example, in the cave at Köstritz and at Paviland (see Buckland, Reliquiæ Diluviance). They have also been found in the bone-caverns in Belgium

Bones of moles have been obtained from the brown clay of Norfolk: they were, we understand, first taken for the remains of lizards.

The questions which arise upon this discovery are:1st. Were they true fossils of that formation or subsequently introduced? and this their condition might determine. 2nd. Are the fossil remains identical with the bones of the common mole?

there is no portion of its labours, no peculiarity of its habits, no function of its organization, that is not the means or the cause of ravage and devastation to our cultivated grounds. The soil, say they, is rendered dry and sterile by its subterranean roads; the crops are killed by the exposure or the destruction of the roots; the plants themselves are overthrown by the construction of the mole-hills, or they perish from their roots being eaten, or they are dug up and scattered by the superficial furrows which the animal ploughs up either in search of food or in pursuit of its mate; large quantities of young corn too are carried off by it to form its nest; and, finally, its aban-(Schmerling). doned fortress becomes the resort of the field-mouse and other noxious animals. Thus the field and the meadow, the garden and the plantation, are alike the scenes of its ravages; and De Vaux calculates that the loss which it occasions to the spring corn alone may be calculated at one-eighth of the whole produce. Then, on the other hand, these prejudiced judges allow nothing for the benefit which arises from the destruction of innumerable worms, and of insects both in the larva and perfect state: this advantage is in fact denied by De Vaux, who declares that the mole feeds only on the most harmless of those animals, the earth-worm, and that it refuses those which are injurious to mankind. Its more benevolent advocates, on the other hand, contend not only that the injury which it perpetrates is slight, but that it is more than counter-in mind that though this quadruped is a denizen of the balanced by the benefit which it produces by turning up and lightening the soil, and especially by its immense destruction of earth-worms and many other noxious animals which inhabit the superficial layer of the ground, and occasion great injury to the roots of grass, corn, and many other plants. If we examine the real nature and degree of its injuries on the one side, and its utility on the other, we shall probably find that both parties are erroneous. The fact of its devastations cannot be denied, it is only in the degree and extent of them that the estimation is incorrect; and whilst its utility in clearing the ground of worms and similar causes of injury must also be allowed, it can scarcely be sustained that the lightening of the soil by the turning up of its hillocks is, at most, more than a very equivocal source of advantage.'

Thus we see that much may be said on both sides.' We have heard advocates for the mole declare that in great sheep-walks whence they have been rooted out, the whole character of the feed has been altered, and the exterminators have been obliged to introduce them again, and we have heard such stories denied. Too much stress however may be laid on its services as a destroyer of the earth-worm; for it may be well doubted whether it aids the agriculturist by the destruction of an animal that does so much for the soil. [LUMBRICUS, vol. xiv., p. 196.]

Whatever may be the merits of the case, the persecution of these animals in cultivated countries amounts almost to a war of extermination. The numbers annually slaughtered are enormous. Mr. Bell states that Mr. Jackson, a very intelligent mole-catcher, who had followed the craft for thirty-five years, had destroyed from forty to fifty thousand. But all mole-exterminators must yield to Le Court, who, in no large district, took, in five months, six thousand of them.

Moles are good swimmers, and their bite is very sharp: when their blood is up, their ferocity is great, and they keep their hold like a bull-dog.

An inspection of the remains themselves might convey a solution of both these questions, and we are informed that the fossils are, through the kindness of Professor Sedgwick, about to be sent up to Professor Owen.

But throughout this inquiry it will be necessary to bear

earth, performing all its functions, with little exception, below the surface, and though we might for that reason be led to expect the frequent occurrence of its remains in a fossil state, true fossil bones of the mole have not hitherto been described. The danger to be guarded against with regard to those specimens found in the newer and superficial strata is that a burrowing animal may have penetrated into those fossiliferous beds subsequently to their formation and the deposit of their organized contents. We therefore look forward to Professor Owen's opinion upon the condition of these remains and their specific distinction with much interest.

TALUS, or TALUT, probably from 'taglio,' Ital., a cut, is a term used chiefly by writers on fortification, in speaking of a rampart or parapet, to signify a surface which is inclined to the horizon. Thus the upper surface of a parapet is called the superior talus or slope; and that surface of a rampart or parapet which is towards the country, or towards the town, is called the exterior, or the interior, talus of the work (fig. 2, BASTION).

The superior talus of a parapet is usually formed in a plane which, if produced towards the country, would nearly meet the top of the counterscarp before it, in order that the defenders of the rampart may be able to fire into the covered way in the event of the latter being occupied by the enemy, their muskets being laid upon that slope. The exterior or the interior talus of any work of earth usually forms, with the horizon, an angle of 45 degrees; such being the inclination at which the surface of earth, of medium tenacity, will stand unsupported. TAMAN, a peninsula, or rather a delta-island, is formed by the main branch of the river Kuban, which empties itself into the Black Sea, and a small branch of the same river, which flows into the Sea of Azof north of the old fortress of Temruk. The western or large part of the island stretches between the sea of Azof on the north and the Black Sea on the south, and is bounded on the west by the As to the question whether the species under consider- Strait of Yenikále, the antient Bosporus Cimmerius, and ation is the aspalax (ȧorádak) of Aristotle, who describes the Bay of Taman. The island resembles the open claws his animal as blind, see the article MURIDÆ, vol. xv., p. 516. of a lobster, embracing the Bay of Taman. Its length is Geographical Distribution.-The common mole is found 57 miles, and its greatest breadth 22 miles, but the real throughout the greater part of the continent of Europe surface is far from corresponding to these dimensions, the and its larger islands. In Greece it is said to be compara- | middle of the island being occupied by the large Temruktively rare. We are overrun with it in most parts of Eng-skoi Liman, or Lake of Temruk, and the whole of the reland and Wales, but it does not appear to have been found maining part being notched by creeks and bays in such in the northern extremity of Scotland, though it is fre- a manner as to present rather the skeleton of an island quent enough in the south. There is no record of its than a real island. The south-western part of Taman, having been seen in the Orkney Isles, Zetland, or Ireland. the antient peninsula of Corocondama (Pomp. Mela, The Prince of Musignano has well figured, in his ex-i. 19; Strabo, p. 494. Casaub.) presents a solid mass cellent work, Iconografia della Fauna Italica, the species traversed by several ranges of hills from 150 to 180 under consideration and the Talpa cæca, which may feet high: they run from west to east, and near the vilbe the Aspalar of Aristotle. In this last species the lage of Sennaya-Balka form a bifurcation. One branch middle incisive teeth are longer than the rest; in the com- runs between the Kubanskoi Liman, or the lake formed by mon mole they are all equal, and De Vaux states that the Kuban before it reaches the sea, and the lake of Temthere is some difference, though not great, in the habits ruk, and terminates in a slip of land which divides this and architecture of the two species. Mr. Bell suggests lake into two unequal parts. The other branch, the direc

tion of which is north-east, forms the isthmus between the The Greeks knew this remarkable island under the name lake of Temruk on the east, and the bay of Taman on the of Eion (Hiv), and founded several colonies in it. The west, and terminates before it reaches the isthmus between most considerable of them were-Phanagoria, a famous the lake of Temruk and the Sea of Azof. The north-commercial town, which contained a beautiful temple of western part of Taman, or the peninsula between the Sea Aphrodite of Apaturon (Strabo, p. 495. Casaub.); Kepos, of Azof and the bay of Taman, is no less elevated above or Kepi, a colony of the Milesians; Hermonassa, founded by the sea, but although it is a continuation of the mainland, the Ionians; and Achilleion: some ruins and marbles are it is separated from the eastern hills by a flat sandy isth- the only traces that remain of their antient splendour. The mus, which seems to have been covered by the sea at a island belonged for a long period to the kingdom of Busperiod not very remote from our own times. All these porus, and was afterwards conquered by Pharnaces, the hills are mere masses of sand and pebbles cemented with son of Mithridates. At the beginning of the middle clay. The higher part of them is barren, but the slopes, ages it belonged to the dominions of the Goths, and and the low grounds between them and the sea or the afterwards of the Khazars, a Turkish people, renowned lakes, are covered with soil and fit for agriculture. They for their industry and commerce. It was then known also make rich pasture-grounds. The isthmus between under the name of Tamatarkha. In the tenth century a the Temrukskoi Liman and the bay of Taman, and princi- Russian prince founded there the petty kingdom of Tmupally that between the lake of Temruk and the Kubanskoi tarakan; the greater part of the inhabitants however were Liman, have a very pleasant aspect, being covered with Tsherkessians and Turks, and, from the time of the inthe neat farmhouses of the Cossacks; and on the meadows vasion of the Mongols, the Tartars remained the only masthere are numerous flocks of cattle, some of which are ters of it. Numerous old tombs still attest their long sent thither across the strait from the neighbouring coast residence on the island. They were at last driven out by of the Crimea. The eastern part of Taman is formed by the Russians, who repeopled the country with Cossacks in two flat and narrow isthmuses, and a somewhat broader order to defend it against the invasions of the Tsherkessians tract of lowland between the two branches of the beyond the Kuban. There are now only two towns: TmúKuban. The whole of this country is marshy, partly tarakán, the Tamatarkha of the middle ages and the Phacovered with pastures and partly with a luxuriant ve- nagoria of the Greeks; and the present town of Phanagoria, getation of rushes and reeds, which, in the neighbour- which was built by the Russians on the shore of the bay hood of Kaláus, as Dr. Clarke states, attain a height of Taman, three miles east from Tmútarakán, on account of from sixteen to twenty feet. Everywhere there is of its harbour being deeper than that of the latter town. a struggle between land and water; gulfs become creeks (Pallas, Bemerkungen auf einer Reise in den Südlichen and lakes, creeks are changed into marshes, and as soon Provinzen des Russischen Reiches; Dr. Clarke, Travels in as these get a continental aspect, the waters again swal- Russia. The best map of the island of Taman is contained low them up. In the rainy season, says Pallas, all this in the great Atlas of Russia published at St. Petersburg; country is overflowed by the waters of the Kuban, and the the map in Pallas's Bemerkungen is also good; that of higher part of Taman is separated from the continent by Dr. Clarke has some interest for lovers of antiquities, but an immense lake which extends from one sea to the is far from being geographically exact.) other; but notwithstanding the apparently overwhelming TAMA'NDUA. [ANT-EATER, vol. ii., p. 65.] power of the waters, the solid element makes constant TAMARICA'CE, a small natural order, belonging progress. Thus M. Dureau de la Malle is correct when, to the syncarpous group of polypetalous Exogens. The in his Géographie Physique de la Mer Noire,' he says species are either shrubs or herbs, having straight rodthat all the lakes on the shore of the Sea of Azof, which are like branches, with alternate entire leaves, resembling separated from the sea only by flat and narrow isthmuses, scales; the flowers are in dense spikes or racemes. have once been bays and gulfs, and that the barriers be- The calyx is 4-5-parted, persistent; the petals inserted tween them and the open sea are a deposit formed by into the calyx, both with imbricate æstivation; stamens the astonishing masses of mud and sand carried into this hypogynous, distinct or united, equal in number with the sea by the Don and its tributary rivers. As to the whole petals or twice as many; ovary superior, with a short style eastern part of the island of Taman, it is also a mere re- and 3 stigmas; fruit a capsule, 3-valved, 1-celled, with cent production of the immense quantities of clay and numerous seeds, which are comose; embryo straight with mud which the Sea of Azof and the Kuban have depo- an inferior radicle. sited before the mouth of this river. The western and elevated part however in its whole geognostical structure belongs to the opposite continent of the Crimea, from which it has apparently been separated by the current of the Cimmerian Bosporus. Two characteristic peculiarities of this latter part are the Sewernaya Kossa, a long but very flat and narrow slip of land which stretches from the north-west extremity of the northern peninsula in a south-west direction to the middle of the mouth of the bay of Taman; and the cluster of small islands, the principal one of which was known to the Byzantines by the name of Atech, which extend from Point Yunaya north-west till they reach the centre of the strait. These islands will probably become a continuous land, and by joining the opposite Sewernaya Kossa, will separate the whole bay of Taman from the Bosporus. Numerous small craters are situated on the ridge of the hills around the Bay of Taman, as well as along the lake of Temruk. They present all the external appearances of volcanoes; though the matter which they throw out is not lava, but a thick mud of a deep black colour, which they discharge at irregular periods. The largest of these craters is situated on the southern extremity of the northwest peninsula, and a description of the most remarkable eruption of it is given by Pallas in the work cited below. This traveller attributes these phenomena to the burning of an extensive layer of coals, upon which indeed the whole island of Taman seems to repose. The apparition of an island, which, on the 5th of September, 1799, suddenly rose from the Sea of Azof, near the coast of Temruk, a phenomenon which was preceded and accompanied by a kind of earthquake, and all the other symptoms of a volcanic eruption, was undoubtedly the effect of the same subterraneous cause. The new island however soon disappeared in the sea.

Tamarix germanica. a, cutting, showing the straight branches and scale-like leaves; b, single flower; c, flower with calyx and corolla removed showing monadelphous stamens; d, capsule with comose seeds escaping.

This order is placed by De Candolle with those which have perigynous stamens, but there is no doubt now that