Note 225 — SECTION VII. ZOOLOGICAL NOTES (ANIMALS WILD AND TAME)—NOTES ON FLORA—AGRICULTURE AND CATTLE-BREEDING—FISHERIES AND FISHING—INDUSTRY AND EMIGRATION.

The author’s statement made in the Standard found objectors. Hr E. Magnússon impudently contradicted what he termed a contradictio in adjecto, apparently ignorant of the simple truth that neither logic nor Latin can affect facts and figures. It is amply confirmed by the Consular Report of 1870-71: “The stocks of domestic animals have shown a steady tendency to decrease, especially as regards the sheep flocks, which at times have been cruelly decimated by scab epidemics; the occasional failure of the grass crops exercises also a destructive influence on their herds and flocks generally, as they have no means at hand of substituting other fodder for the excellent wild pastures with which in ordinary years Nature supplies them so bounteously. These occasional epidemics and grass failures are bewailed by the Icelander as national calamities; but it is a question whether they may not prove to be the reverse, by opening his eyes to the necessity of devoting his energies and small capital to the better and more regular prosecution of the fisheries, which are boundless in extent, and less dependent on vicissitudes and seasons.”