Page images
PDF
EPUB

FAUSTINUS I.-FAVRE.

Pius, and died 141 A.D.; the latter, known as Faustina Junior, was married to his successor, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, and died at a village near Mount Taurus in 175 A. D. Both, but particularly the younger, were notorious for the profligacy of their lives, which their exemplary husbands in vain endeavoured to check. After their deaths, institutions for the relief of poor girls were founded both by Antoninus and Marcus Aurelius in honour of them, and were called 'puellæ alimentaria Faustinc.' Marcus Aurelius, in his Meditations, speaks highly of his wife, and an attempt has been made by Wieland to defend her against the imputations of the historians of the emperors.

FAUSTINUS I., emperor of Haiti, known, before his elevation to the throne, as Faustinus Soulouque, a negro originally of very humble circumstances, was born in St Domingo in 1789. In his earlier years, he acted as servant, and afterwards as adjutant, to General Lamarre. He subsequently served under Presidents Petion and Boyer, and by the latter was raised to the rank of captain. After the year 1844, when the Haitian Republic-of which General Boyer was then president was dissolved, a struggle for the supreme power ensued, in which F. played an important part. In 1847 he was appointed by the senate President of the Republic. On the 16th April 1848, a dreadful massacre of the mulattoes in Port-au-Prince took place at his instigation. This, and similar measures, struck terror into the hearts of his opponents. In August 1849, he had himself proclaimed Emperor of Haiti, a title which he enjoyed for about ten years; but a revolution having broken out in 1858, and a republic having been declared, F. was forced to abdicate, 15th January 1859.

FAUVETTE, a French name, partially adopted in the English language, for some of the little songbirds of the family Sylviada or Warblers, having straight slender bills slightly compressed in front, the ridge of the upper mandible curving a little towards the tip, and the legs not long. They mostly belong to the genus Curruca, as the Blackcap, the Pettychaps or Garden Warbler, the Whitethroat, &c.; and to the genus Salicaria, as the Sedge Warbler, the Reed Warbler, &c. The Dartford Warbler (Melizophilus Provincialis) is also called Fauvette. They are all very lively little birds, continually flitting about in pursuit of insects, mostly frequenting bushy places; and some of them, particularly those of the genus Salicaria, preferring watery situations where reeds abound.

FAVA'RA, a town of Sicily, in the south of the island, in the province of Girgenti, and four miles south-east of the town of that name. It has rich sulphur-mines, and a population of 11,400.

FAVART, CHARLES SIMON, a French dramatist, was born at Paris 13th November 1710, and first became known by his La Chercheuse d'Esprit, performed in 1741. In 1745, he married Mademoiselle Duronceray, herself a dramatic writer of some note, and a singer of remarkable talent, and in the same year became director of the OpéraComique. The fine taste and judgment of F.

and his wife soon obtained for their theatre a great reputation. It was they who made the first attempt to harmonise the costume of the actors and actresses with their impersonations, and to put a stop to the ridiculous practice of decking out soubrettes and country-girls in the attire of court-ladies. So powerful, however, was the opposition excited against them by the jealousy of the other theatres, that the Opéra-Comique was closed in the first year of its existence. After some time spent with Maréchal de Saxe during his campaign

in Flanders, F. and his wife returned to Paris, where the former continued to write operas. His wife died in 1772, and he 12th May 1793. F.'s success as a writer was very great: he may be reckoned the father of the comic opera, and the happy successor of Le Sage, Piron, &c. The number of his pieces amounts to about 60, of which the most celebrated are Comment l'Esprit vient aux Filles, Le Coq du Village, Bastien et Bastienne, Ninnette à la Cour, Les Trois Sultanes, and L'Anglais à Bordeaux. works have been published several times. edition in ten volumes was published at Paris in 1810, under the title of Théâtre de Monsieur et Madame Favart. A very interesting book, entitled Les Mémoires et la Correspondence de Favart, giving delightful glimpses of the literary and theatrical world of the 18th c., was published at Paris in 1809 by his grandson.

His

An

FAVERSHAM, a municipal borough and seaport in the north of Kent, on a navigable creek, opposite Sheppey Isle, 8 miles west-north-west of Canterbury. It chiefly consists of four streets in an irregular cross. It has a valuable oyster-fishery, employing 200 to 300 persons. It sends much agricultural produce to London by hoys. The creek admits vessels of 150 tons. In the vicinity are some of the most important gunpowder factories in the kingdom. Pop. (1861) 5891. Under the name of Favresfield, it was a seat of the Saxon kings, where Athelstan, in 930, held a Witenagemôte. It has the remains of an abbey founded by King Stephen, where he and his queen, Matilda, are buried. St Crispin is said to have been apprenticed to a shoemaker here. Near F. are some chalk caverns, with columns. In 1860, 2786 vessels, of 165,200 tons, entered and cleared the port.

FAVIGNA'NA, the chief of the Ægades, a group of islands in the Mediterranean, off the west coast of Sicily, lies at a distance of six miles from the Sicilian shore, and is about six miles long, with an average breadth of two miles. It has a town of the same name, with two castles, and a population of 3900. F. is fruitful, has good pasturage, and produces excellent wine.

FA'VOSITES, a genus of lamelliferous corals, found in Silurian, Devonian, and Carboniferous strata. They were social corals, closely packed together, no space being left between the walls of the different corallites. As in the other paleozoic corals, the lamellæ are developed in multiples of four, and the older portion of the stony base is partitioned off by horizontal tabulæ.

FAVOURS, or MARRIAGE FAVOURS, bows of white satin ribbons distributed at marriages in Great Britain, and usually pinned on the breast of all concerned, attendants and postilions included. The favours of those more immediately interested are sometimes enriched with orange blossom. This is an old usage, connected with the love-knot of ancient northern nations, which is not likely soon to disappear; it forms almost the only remaining token of merriment in the nuptial ceremonial. See Brand's Popular Antiquities, edited by Ellis, article Bride Favours.'

[ocr errors]

FAVRE, GABRIEL CLAUDE JULES, a French advocate and deputy, was born at Lyon, 31st March 1809. He is the son of a merchant, studied for the bar, and passed at Lyon in 1830. His political opinions were and are intensely republican, and when pleading for his clients, in the course of the numerous political lawsuits which he was employed to carry on, F. not unfrequently placed the state solicitors, and even the judges, in a very embarrassing position, by the boldness of his sentiments. As the defender of the Mutuellists at Lyon in 1831, he

FAVUS-FAYETTEVILLE.

was in danger of losing his life; this, however, did not prevent him from appearing before the House of Peers, in 1834, as the defender of those who had been impeached in April, and commencing his speech with Je suis Républicain. Since 1834, F. has been a member of the Paris bar. In the February revolution of 1848, F. was appointed Home Secretary, in which capacity he wrote the notorious circular for which Ledru-Rollin's administration was so severely reproached, investing the commissioners of the republic with dictatorial authority in the provinces. As a member of the Committee of Foreign Affairs, and for some time under-secretary to the same, he took an active part in the labours of the Assembly. After the election of the 10th December, F. shewed himself a persistent antagonist of the President, Louis Napoleon, and after the flight of Ledru-Rollin, became the orator of the Mountain. The coup d'état virtually closed his political career. He refused to take the oath of fidelity to the imperial government, and betook himself again to his professional duties. In 1858, he defended Orsini, on his trial for a conspiracy to murder. F. is greatest in political repartee, and though long accustomed to the rough arena of public strife, his language is noted for its Attic elegance. He is the author of several political brochures.

FA'VUS (Lat. a honeycomb), a disease of the skin, chiefly of the hairy scalp, characterised by yellowish dry incrustations of more or less roundish form, and often cup-shaped, composed of the Sporules and Mycelia (q. v.) of a vegetable growth belonging to the order of Fungi (q. v.). The discs of favus are produced with great rapidity, and spread rapidly, if not attended to at the first, over the whole scalp, destroying the bulbs of the hair, which becomes very short and thin, and then falls out altogether. Favus is a disgusting and unsightly, but hardly a dangerous disorder; it is, beyond doubt, contagious, but only spreads where cleanliness is greatly neglected, and is therefore almost unknown among the better classes. It is far more common among children than among adults, and seems to be more frequent in Scotland than in England, and more frequent also on the continent than in either England or Scotland. The cure is sometimes attempted by a variety of medicated and simple ointments, and by pulling out the hair by the roots, or epilation, as it is called; but it seems hardly possible in inveterate cases to get rid of the disease without a very long persistence in habits of the most scrupulous cleanliness, and therefore the cure is seldom permanent, though easily attained for the time. Favus is almost always followed by permanent baldness of the parts affected; unlike Ringworm (q. v.), which is a minor disease of the same order.

The Favus fungus, Achorion Schoenleinii, is nearly allied to the fungus which has recently proved so destructive to vines, and has by some botanists been placed in the same genus, Oidium.

FAWKES, GUY (properly GUIDO), the head of the conspiracy known by the name of the Gunpowder Plot, was born of a Protestant family in Yorkshire, in the year 1570. He became a Roman Catholic at an early age, and served in the Spanish army in the Netherlands. Inspired with fanatical zeal for his new religion, on his return to England, he entered into a plot with several Catholic gentlemen for blowing up the king, his ministers, and the members of both houses at the opening of parliament, 5th November 1605. Guy F. was taken with the burning match in his hand, tried, and after having been put to the torture, was publicly executed January 31, 1606. In remembrance of this event, in most English towns, but

particularly in London, a grotesque figure, stuffed with straw, is carried about the streets on the 5th of November, and finally committed to the flames.

Gmdo faukes
дово

Gissio

Guy Fawkes's Signature before and after torture.

A political and religious signification was again imparted to this custom by what was called the papal aggression' in the year 1850, when the figure of Cardinal Wiseman (q. v.) was substituted for that of Guy Fawkes.

FA'Y, ANDRÁS, a Hungarian author, was born in 1786, at Kohany, in the county of Zemplén. After having studied philosophy and law at the Protestant college of Sárospatak, F. was called to the bar. He held a situation for some time in the county of Pesth, which, however, he afterwards relinquished, in order to be able to devote himself altogether to After two volumes of poetry, literary pursuits. appeared the collection of Fables (Mesék, Vien. 1820), and with the issue of that work F. obtained a decided reputation. The fables are like those of Phædrus and La Fontaine, but in prose. Richness of invention, simplicity of design, and truth of character, are the chief qualities for which the Mesék have become a household word among Hungarians. Among F.'s dramatic works may be mentioned the tragedy, The Two Bathorys (A Két Báthory, Pesth, 1827); the comedies, Ancient Coins (Régi Pénzek), and Hunters in the Matra (Mátrai Vadászok). The novel, The House of the Béltekys (A' Béltéky-haz, Pesth, 1832), is rather of a didactic kind, but exhibits many features of Hungarian domestic life. Besides these, F. has been a constant contributor to literary and scientific periodicals, and had also his share in some of those pamphlets by which great social questions, as, for instance, female education, savingsbanks, &c., were brought to a successful issue in Hungary. In reading F.'s works, we are frequently reminded of Dean Swift. From 1825, which year may be said to have been the beginning of a new political life for Hungary, up to the year 1840, F. was foremost among the leaders of the liberal opposition in the county sittings of Pesth; but on the appearance of Kossuth, the strides of public life growing more and more rapid, F. gradually retired from the region of political controversy, turning his inventive mind to social improvements. The first savingsbank of Hungary (at Pesth) is entirely F.'s work. His literary works were published in eight volumes at Pesth, 1843-1844. He is a directing member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

Azores (q. v.), contains about 37 square miles, and about 22,000 inhabitants. As one must infer from such density of population, the island is fertile. In its centre is a mountain 3000 feet in height; and on its south-east coast a convenient bay with good anchorage.

FAYA'L, one of the most important of the

Its principal town, Horta, stands on this bay in lat. 38° 30′ Ñ., and long. 28° 41′ W.

FAYETTEVILLE is the name of a flourishing city of North Carolina, United States of America Standing on the left bank of the Cape Fear River, about 140 miles from its mouth, F. marks the head of its natural navigation; while, by means of locks

FAYÙM FEATHER GRASS.

and dams, it communicates likewise with the upper basin of the river. While the interior sends down coal, the immediate neighbourhood is covered with forests of pine, which are traversed in all directions by 350 miles of plank-road, and yield not merely timber but tar and turpentine. The Cape Fear, moreover, gives abundance of water-power, which is largely applied to the manufacture of cottons and flour. F. has an arsenal of nearly 50 acres in extent, and numbers fully 8000 inhabitants.

FAYUM, the name of an Egyptian province, surrounded, in the form of a basin, by the Libyan Desert, and connected merely by a narrow valley with that of the Nile, between lat. 29-30° N., and 30°-31° E. This peculiar depression of the desert extends about 30 miles from north to south, and about 40 miles from east to west, its lowest point lying 100 feet below the banks of the Nile at Benisuef. F. is one of the most fertile provinces in Egypt; producing, in addition to the ordinary useful plants of the country, roses, apricots, figs, vines, olives, &c. in great quantities. This fertility, in a province the soil of which is naturally arid and sandy, is the result of irrigation. A canal from the Nile was, at an early period, carried westward through a gorge in the Libyan hills, which here skirt the western bank of the Nile, and after dividing into numerous branches, lodged its waters in a depression in the north-west, thus forming, it is said, the Lake Moeris (q. v.). The ancient capital of the province, called Krokodilopolis, and at a later period Arsinoë, stood on the eastern shore of Lake Moris, and upon its ruins stands the present town, Medinet-el-Fayam, still a place of considerable size, and the chief town of the province.

FEAL AND DIVOT is a Predial Servitude (q. v.) peculiar to the law of Scotland, in virtue of which the proprietor of the dominant tenement possesses the right of turning up and carrying off turf from the servient tenement for the purpose of building fences, roofing houses, and the like. This, as well as the servitude of fuel, implies the right of using the nearest grounds of the servient tenement on which to lay and dry the Turf Peats (q. v.) or feal. These servitudes do not extend beyond the ordinary uses of the actual occupants of the dominant tenement, and cannot be taken advantage of for such a purpose as to burn limestone for sale. They are not included in the servitude of pasturage, but must be constituted either by express grant, or by possession following on the usual clause of parts and pertinents. Ersk. ii. tit. ix. s. 17. The etymology of these words has been much disputed. Feal or fail is said to come from the Suio-Gothic wall, any grassy part of the surface of the ground; and Jamieson derives divot from delve (Sax. delfan or delven), or, as another alternative, says that it may have been formed by the monkish writers of old charters from defodere, to dig the earth. The former is the more probable conjecture.

FEALTY (Lat. fidelitas) is the fidelity which a man who holds lands of another owes to him, and contains an engagement to perform the services, or to pay the dues, for which the land is granted. It was embodied in an oath, by which the tenant bound himself on entering to the lands. In taking the oath of fidelity, Littleton says, s. 91, that the tenant shall not kneel, nor shall make such humble reverence as in homage. The only object of fealty in modern times is to keep up the evidence of tenure where no other services are due; but even to this effect it has gone into desuetude.

FEAR, MANIA OF, or PANPHOBIA. There are many morbid manifestations of the instinct of

cautiousness. Sudden fear in sleep, horrible dreams, nightmare, sleep-walking, have been regarded as symptoms of a special disease. Actual terror from irregular circulation in the sensory ganglia; the sense of falling or drowning in cardiac affections; incubus from disturbance of the circulation in the larger vessels by repletion, plethora, or position, where there is the super-addition of a delusion to the feeling of apprehension-are all allied and distinguished by involuntary and excited cautiousness. be supposed to be dormant, and the instincts awake, It is not only, however, when the intelligence may that such exaggerated fears paralyse minds otherwise sane and sound. Murat, 'the bravest of the brave,' and James I. of England, learned if not wise, for a time unmanned them. The condition is often were subject to vague, uncontrollable panics, which found associated with disease of the heart, as a consequence and concomitant rather than a cause. The presence of the habitual dread of evil, the fear of death, the sleepless and breathless anxiety during darkness, or solitude, or silence, as well as the sudden, wild, ungovernable panic, point to the existence of organic or functional diseases of the heart; and conversely, excited or irregular action of the organ, murmurs, angina, lead the astute psychologist to predicate fear as a characteristic of the mental condition. It precedes, and is believed to produce chorea, cancer, and scirrhus. Proximately, however, it depends upon alterations in the capillary circulation, or nervous structure of the brain. Its characteristic is involuntary, irresistible, blind terror, which arises and continues without an adequate cause, and which is not influenced by reason or religion, not even by the removal of the supposed object of alarm. The disease has appeared epidemically during commercial panics, during the horrors of cholera and plague, and in that singular affection called Timoria, which is marked by debility, tremor, and terror, and has been traced to the effects of the damp, unhealthy regions in Sardinia and Sicily, where it exclusively occurs. Panphobia is hereditary, and has been traced through three successive generations. In reviewing the unobtrusive members of an asylum family, the pallid, startled, staring, flickering countenances may be detected as those of patients labouring under fear. They resemble melancholics in pallidity of skin, but in place of courting they shrink from sympathy; though horror-stricken by gloom, they hide in corners, they escape, they shriek in desperation, they climb trees, and apparently inaccessible places; and encounter real in order to elude fancied dangers; or they are motionless, paralysed. They fear and flee from enemies, police, demons, death, punishment; indescribable agonies themselves.-Feuchtersleben, Principles of Medical Psychology, p. 281; Arnold, Observations on Nature, Kinds, Causes, and Prevention of Insanity, &c., vol. i. p. 257.

FEASTS. See FESTIVALS.

FEATHER, a river of California, and a feeder of the Sacramento, runs through one of the richest gold-fields in the state. It receives the Yuba near Marysville, which appears to mark the head of navigation-the distance down the F. and the Sacramento to the harbour of San Francisco being about 100 miles.

In

FEATHER GRASS (Stipa), a genus of grasses remarkable for the long awns which give a peculiar and very graceful appearance to the species, mostly natives of warm temperate climates. some of them, the awn is beautifully feathered. This is the case in the best known species, the COMMON F. G. (S. pennata), a very doubtful native of Britain, but found on dry hills in the middle and

FEATHER GRASS-FEATHERS.

south of Europe. It is a perennial, easy of cultivation, and a favourite ornament of our gardens. When gathered before the seeds are ripe, its feathery awns -sometimes a foot in length-remain attached, so that tufts of F. G. retain their beauty throughout winter, and form one of the most pleasing and familiar decorations of rooms. They are often dyed, to give variety to the decoration, but are never more beautiful than in their natural yellowishwhite colour. The feathery awns not only assist in the diffusion of the seed, which is carried by the wind to great distances, but in a very interesting manner help to fix it in the soil. The seed alights vertically, the furrowed base of the awn becomes twisted, so Feather Grass (Stipa pennata). that its furrows form the threads of a screw, the feathery portion becomes horizontal, the wind acts on it, and the seed is screwed into the ground-a reverse action being prevented by stiff hairs which act as barbs.-The Esparto (q. v.) of Spain is nearly allied to the Common Feather Grass.

FEATHERS, a complicated modification of the tegumentary system forming the external covering or plumage of birds, and peculiar to this class of animals. Notwithstanding the varieties of size, strength, and colour, all feathers are composed of a quill or barrel, a; a shaft, bb; and a vane, beard, or web, cc, on either side of the shaft, the vane consisting of barbs and barbules.

f

Feather.

The quill by which the feather is attached to the skin is wider but shorter than the shaft, and forms a semi-transparent, horny, cylindrical tube, which terminates below in an obtuse ex

tremity, presenting an orifice termed the lower umbilicus, e. A second orifice, leading into the interior of the quill, and termed the upper umbilicus, f, is situated at the opposite end, where the two vanes meet and unite. The cavity of the quill contains a series of conical capsules fitted one upon another, and united by a central pedicle; and the whole structure presents a remarkable combination of strength and lightness. The shaft is always of greater length than the quill, and tapers gradually to its free extremity; it is flattened at the sides, is more or less convex on the back, and presents a longitudinal groove inferiorly. It is composed of white, elastic, spongy structure, which is covered by a thin horny sheath.

At the point of junction of the shaft and quill, we usually observe-except on the feathers of the wings and tail-a small supplementary shaft given off, which is furnished with barbs or fibres, and is termed the plumule or accessory plume. In the ostrich it is altogether absent; in the rhea, it is represented by a tuft of down; in the emu, on the other hand, it equals the original feathers in size, so that the quill supports two shafts; and in the cassowary there is a second plumule of considerable size, so that the quill presents three distinct shafts.

The vanes or webs are composed of numerous barbs or small fibres arranged in a single series along each side of the shaft. They are fine prolongations of the outer coat of the shaft, are of a flattened form, and lie inclined towards the apex of the feather, with their flat sides towards each other, and their margins in the direction of the external and internal sides of the feather. The barbs are broader near the shaft than at the free apex, and in the large wing-feathers the convexity of one is received into the concavity of another. They are, however, generally kept in position by the barbules, which are minute curved filaments arising from the upper edge of the barb, much as the latter arises from the shaft. There are two sets of these barbules, one curved upwards, and the other downwards, and those of one barb hook so firmly into those of the next, as to form a close and compact surface. In the ostrich, the barbules are well developed, but are loose and separate, and it is this arrangement which gives to the feathers of this bird their soft, plumous appearance.

Feathers present numerous gradations of structure. In the cassowary, the wings, instead of being provided with ordinary feathers, are furnished with five cylindrical stalks destitute of barbs, so that here we have merely the quill and shaft. On the breast of the wild turkey there is a tuft of feathers resembling long black hair. In the Dasylophus Cumingii, the feathers of the crest, breast, and throat are changed, at their extremities, into round, horny lamella, looking like shining black spangles; and in the common waxwing or Bohemian chatterer, some of the wing-feathers present at their extremities small horny expansions, resembling red sealing-wax, both in colour and consistence.

This

Besides the common feathers, the skin of many birds, especially of aquatic species-in which plumules rarely exist is covered with a thick coating of down, which may be described as consisting of very minute feathers, each of which is composed of a very small soft tube lying in the skin, from the interior of which arises a minute tuft of soft filaments, without any central shaft. downy covering secures warmth without weight, like the soft fur at the base of the hair of arctic mammals. In most birds, the skin also bears a good many scattered hair-like appendages, which indicate their relations to the ordinary feathers by the presence of a few minute barbs towards the apex.

Feathers are developed in depressions of the skin, lined by an inversion of the epidermis which surrounds the bulb from which each feather springs; they grow, much in the same manner as hairs, by the addition of new cells from the bulb, which becomes modified into the horny and fibrous stem, and by the elongation of previously existing cells. They are, when first formed, living vascular parts, growing by nutrient vessels; but when they are fully formed, the vessels become atrophied, and the feathers become dried up, and gradually die from the summit to the base. For a full account of the development of the different parts, we must refer to Professor Owen's article, Aves,' and to Professor

[ocr errors]

FEBRICULA-FEBRONIANISM.

Huxley's article, Tegumentary Appendages,' in the Cyclopædia of Anatomy and Physiology. Feathers grow with great rapidity, and in some birds attain a length of more than two feet. They are almost always renewed annually, and in many species oftener; hence it may readily be conceived how much vital energy must be exhibited in their development, and how critical the period of moulting must be. The plumage is generally changed several times before it attains the state which is regarded as characteristic of the adult bird; these changes may occupy a period usually ranging from one to five years.

Notwithstanding their extravascular nature, feathers, as is well known, undergo a change of colour after they are completely formed. In yearling birds, the winter plumage, which succeeds the autumnal moult, gradually assumes brighter tints, the new colour commencing at the part of the vane nearest the body, and gradually extending outwards till it pervades the whole feather. Dr Weinland, an American naturalist, is of opinion, from a comparison of bleached specimens in museums, with recent ones taken from the bird, that the brightness and fading of the colours are due to the increase or diminution of an oily matter. Thus, the microscopic examination of the vane of feathers from the breast of a fresh merganser shewed numerous lacunæ containing a reddish oil-like fluid; some weeks after, the same feathers having become nearly white from exposure to light, disclosed air-bubbles instead of the reddish fluid. If this fluid is an actual oil, as is most probably the case, it could make its way into the non-vascular tissue by mere physical imbi- | bition; and on the varying quantities of this oil the variations of plumage would depend.

The property possessed by the plumage of most birds, of keeping the surface protected from moisture, is well known. This is due to two causes. Most birds are provided with an oil-gland at the base of the tail, whose secretion is distributed over the feathers by means of the bill; and, additionally, the shedding of water is partly due to a thin plate of air entangled by the feathers.

The feathers vary in form in different parts of the body, and afford zoological characters for the distinction of species. Hence, they have received distinct names, such as primaries, secondaries, tertiaries, &c., in ornithology. These terms are explained in the article BIRDS.

The chief uses to which feathers are applied in the arts are three-pens, due to the peculiar elasticity of the barrels; bed-feathers, due to the combined softness and elasticity of the barbs; and ornament, due to the graceful forms and delicate tints of the whole feather. The mode of preparing the barrels for pens is described under QUILLS.

Bed-feathers were used in England in the time of Henry VII.; but it is not known how much earlier. At the present day, goose-feathers are preferred, the white rather than the gray. What are called poultry feathers, such as those of the turkey, duck, and fowl, are less esteemed, on account of their deficient elasticity. Wild-duck feathers are soft and elastic, but contain an oil difficult to remove. The following is one among several modes of preparing feathers for beds. Clean water is saturated with quicklime; the feathers are put into a tub; the lime-water is added to the depth of a few inches; the feathers are well steeped and stirred for three or four days; they are taken out, drained, washed in clean water, dried upon nets, shaken Occasionally while drying, and finally beaten to expel any dust. The larger establishments, however, now prepare bed-feathers by steaming, which is found to be a more profitable and efficient pro

cess. The down, which is of so light and exquisite a texture as to have become the symbol of softness, is mostly taken from the breasts of birds, and forms a warm and delicate stuffing for beds, pillows, and coverlets. The most valuable is that obtained from the eider-duck, described under EIDER.

Feathers used for head-dresses, or other purposes of ornament, are selected according to the forms and colours which they display. The ostrich, a very valuable kind of feather, may be taken as an example of the way in which ornamental feathers generally are prepared by the plumassier. The mode of catching the bird itself is noticed under OSTRICH; it suffices here to state that the hunters endeavour to avoid injuring the feathers by blood or blows. When brought to England, the feathers are assorted according to quality; those from the back and above the wings are the best, the wing-feathers next best, and the tail-feathers least valued. The feathers of the male are rather more prized than those of the female. They are cleaned for use by repeated soakings and washings in water, sometimes with and sometimes without soap. There is also a process of bleaching by means of burning sulphur. When dried by being hung upon cords, the feathers pass into the hands of the dresser, who opens the fibres by shaking, gives pliancy to the ribs by scraping them with bits of glass, and curls the filaments by passing the edge of a blunt knife over them. If the feathers, whether of the ostrich or any other bird, remain in the natural colour, little more has to be done; but if a change of tint be required, the feathers easily take dye-materials-such as safflower and lemon-juice for rose-colour or pink, Brazil-wood for deep red, Brazil-wood and cudbear for crimson, indigo for blue, turmeric or weld for yellow, &c. A process of bleaching is adopted before the dyeing, except for black.

The kinds of feathers chiefly used for ornament are those of the ostrich, adjutant, rhea or American ostrich, emu, osprey, egrett, heron, antrenga, bird of paradise, swan, turkey, peacock, argus pheasant, ibis, eagle, and grebe. White ostrich feathers are prepared chiefly for ladies' head-dresses; and black for the Highland regiments and for funereal trappings. The white and gray marabout-stork feathers, imported from Calcutta, are beautifully soft and light, and are in request for head-dresses, muffs, and boas; the white kinds will sometimes sell for their weight in gold. The flossy kinds of rhea feather are used for military plumes, and the long brown wing feathers for brooms and brushes. Osprey and egrett feathers are mostly used for military plumes by Hussar troopers. Bird of Paradise feathers are much sought after by Oriental princes for turban-plumes. Cocks' feathers are used for ladies' riding-hats and for military plumes. Dr Macgowan, who was United States consul at Ningpo a few years ago, has described, in the American Journal of Science and Art, an ingenious process which the Chinese adopt for combining brilliantcoloured feathers with bits of coloured metal into garlands, chaplets, frontals, tiaras, and other ornamental articles.

FEBRI'CULA (Lat. a little fever), sometimes called also Ephemera (Gr. a fever of a day), a fever of short duration and mild character, having no distinct type or specific symptoms, by which it can be distinguished and described. See FEVER.

FE'BRIFUGE (Lat. febris, a fever, and fugo, I drive away), medicines calculated to remove or cut short Fever (q. v.).

FEBRO'NIANISM, in Roman Catholic theology, a system of doctrine antagonistic to the admitted

« PreviousContinue »