Hector Chance for Sardinee—and Octopuses France has declared war on whales. Crews of fishery protection boats, the Paris correspondent of "The Times" tells us, have been ordered to open fire on any whales sighted on patrol, and the Admiralty has been requested to instruct destroyers and scout ships to assist in their destruction in order to prevent their ravages among sardines.
"No doubt certain species of whales eat large quantities of small fish," Sir Sidney Harmer, Director of the Natural History Museum and Keeper of the Department of Zoology, said to a. representative of the " Observer." " Herring shoals are very much attacked by certain kinds of whales, but these attacks do not prevent herrings from bvi <tremely numerous, and it is acter an open question whether, when two organisms are competing with oe another, the one attacked is not uble, generally speaking, to hold its own.
"There is also another side to the question. Some time ago there was a controversy in Norway when ther whales were injurious or not. to the fishing industry, and it was found that they were more useful than otherwise. Norwegian fishermen objected to their destruction, on the ground that they pprformed the useful service of driving the shoals of fish into the neighbour: hood of land, where they could more ily be caught,"
It has been suggested that an effect of this French war on whales is the appearance of octopuses in unusually large numbers on parts of the Devon and Cornish coast. The Ministry of Fisheries, however, is inclined to disregard this theory. In the first place there is no positive information about the repute ed increase in ti number of octopuses on British coasts, and even if it is larger than usual it may be due to sume disturbance in the currents. Besides, there is no evidence whatever that whales have already been killed in such number: io give octopuses a better chance in life. The Ministry, which has a scientific research department. at, Lowostoff, is looking into the matter.
Mantra; July 16.—The worst epidemic of rinderpest in the his tory of thes islands has broken out in the ivland of Masbate. <Aecting Governor-General Yeater has ordered 200 Constabulary to enforce the quarantine regulations. Thousands of cattle have died in a week.—Reuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.