In the navy the pension list for 1880-81 amounted | Pentateuch 'the Law.' The first and most important to 1,145,6477., and included good service pensions to point connected with the Pentateuch is, Who was its officers, 70007.; to officers and marines for conspicuous author? The book does not profess to be an anonymous bravery, 2401.; to flag-officers, 3007.; pensions and production, but expressly claims the great lawgiver of gratuities for wounds and injuries, 80357.; engineers the Jews as its writer. It is evident that Moses at an and warrant officers, 76,5997.; to widows and relatives of early period of his public career formed the resolution officers, 133,4147.; compassionate list, 19,5007.; pen- to prepare a written memorial of the origin and history sions to old and infirm officers, 50257.; to petty officers. of the Hebrew nation, and of their divinely authorized seamen, and marines, not otherwise provided for. polity. He was commanded by God himself to write an 537,8837.; and civil and coastguard pensions, 322,8581. account of the defeat of the Amalekites in the book' PENTACHORD, an ancient Greek musical instru- (Exod. xvii. 14). Mention is also made of his writing ment, which had, as the word implies, five strings. The all the words of the Lord in the book of the covenant' term also signified a scale of five sounds. (Exod. xxiv. 4-7), 'the word of the covenant, the ten commandments' (Exod. xxxiv. 27, 28), and the goings out of the children of Israel according to their journeys, by the commandment of the Lord." In Deut. xxviii. 58, mention is made of 'the words of this law that are written in this book,' and in Deut. xxxi. 9-24, the whole work, including the poem in chap. xxxii., is expressly ascribed to Moses as the author. In the book of Joshua there is repeated mention made of the book of the Law, and the authorship of it is always imputed to the Hebrew legislator. (See chap. i. 7, 8, viii. 31-35, and xxiii. 6.) In the subsequent historical books of the Old Testament there are very frequent intimations that the Law was universally regarded as the Law of Moses. David charges Solomon 'to keep God's statutes, and his commandments, and his judgments, and his testimonies, as it is written in the Law of Moses' (1 Kings ii. 3); the Law of Jehovah, thy God, the statutes and the judgments which Jehovah charged Moses with concerning Israel' (1 Chron. xxii. 12, 13). Mention is made in 2 Chron. xxv. 4, of Amaziah having done as it is written in the Law of the book of Moses;' in chap. xxxiii. 8, reference is made to the whole Law and the statutes, and the ordinances, by the hand of Moses.' PENTAMETER, a species of verse consisting of five In chap. xxxiv. 14, Hilkiah the priest is said to have feet or measures (whence the name), which, when sub-found a book of the Law of Jehovah (given) by Moses.' joined to an hexameter verse, composes an elegiac couplet. The formula may be thus designated—

PENTACRINITES (Gr. ivrs, 'five,' and give, a lily'), in Geology, a tribe of Echinoderms, which have pentagonal ossicula. Extensive beds of limestone are sometimes found composed of these crinoidal or pentacrinoidal remains, which are sometimes worked for chimney-pieces, and other ornamental purposes. Thus, for immeasurable ages before the existence of the human race, the component parts of the material of our variegated slabs were once instinct with animal life. The Pentacrinus Caput Medus is a very rare crinoidal animal, which is now the chief living representative of those mighty swarms that were among the primeval inhabitants of the ocean, whose fossilized remains form a vast extent of strata in America and the north of Europe. It is formed of a column of numerous pentagonal joints, and is still found at the bottom of the seas of the Antilles. Pentacrinus Europaeus is now known to be no more than the larval stock of one of the starfishes the Comatula.

PENTADESMIS BUTYRA'CEA is a tree found in Sierra Leone, from which a fatty substance is obtained, which has given rise to its names of the Butter-tree and Tallow-tree.

PENTAPOLIS (Gr. VT, 'five,' and oλs, 'city'), an ancient Greek term for countries or districts containing five remarkable cities, as the Pentapolis of Libya, and Asia Minor. The most celebrated was the Pentapolis Cyrenaica, including the five important cities of Apollonia, Arsinöe, Berenice, Cyrene, and Ptolemais.

PENTATEUCH, SAMARITAN. The Pentateuch was the only part of the Old Testament which the Samaritans received, and as, from feelings of national animosity, they held no intercourse with the Jews, their copies of the Pentateuch were preserved independently of the Hebrew copies. The Samaritan Pentateuch is entitled to rank with the Hebrew as an independent source for settling the sacred text. In some places it gives readings manifestly superior to those of the Hebrew. In many passages in which it differs from the latter, it agrees with the Septuagint.

PENTATEUCH, THE. The Greek name given to the five books of Moses. The Jews usually called the

In Ezra iii. 2, 'as it is written in the Law of Moses the man of God,' and vi. 18, as it is written in the book of Moses.' (See also 1 Kings viii. 53, Ezra vii. 6 Neh. i. 7, viii. 1, ix. 3, 14, xiii. 1-3, and Dan. ix. 11-13.) Our Lord and his apostles always refer to the work as the production of the Jewish lawgiver; and no vestige of doubt as to the genuineness of the Mosaical books is to be found either among the ancient Jews or the early Christians. For centuries the Pentateuch was received by the church without question as written by Moses. Some doubts as to the Mosaic origin of certain passages were, indeed, thrown out by Aben Ezra in 1167, but it was not till after the Reformation that attempts were made by Spinoza and others to demonstrate the later origin of the work. In 1733 the favourite hypothesis of the masters of the rationalistic school, that various documents were employed by Moses in the composition of the book of Genesis, was first broached by Dr. Astruc, professor of medicine in the Royal College at Paris. The fragmentary hypothesis,' as it is called, was propounded in 1815 by Vater, who applied to the criticism of the sacred books the theory of Wolf respecting the Iliad, and maintained that the Pentateuch consisted merely of a number of fragments loosely strung together without order or design. Since that time a series of the most contradictory theories have been broached by German critics respecting the age and origin of the Pentateuch. Schumann makes Ezra the author of the law. Hartman is of opinion that it sprang up gradually, and that a portion of the work was written as late as the Exile. Von Bohlen affirms that it was partly written after that

epoch, and was not completed till the age of Christ. According to De Wette certain portions were written in the time of Samuel, but Deuteronomy belongs to the age of Josiah. Delitzch, again, agrees with the writers above mentioned in maintaining that two distinct documents form the basis of the Pentateuch; but he asserts that Deuteronomy is the work of Moses. Schultz contends that what are called the Jehovist portions of the first five books are also the productions of the Hebrew lawgiver. And finally, Ewald assigns no fewer than seven authors to the Pentateuch, the first of whom he supposes wrote in the days of Samson, and the last somewhat later than the time of Jeremiah.

To the important German commentaries and treatises already mentioned, may be added the general Introductions of Michaelis, Eichhorn, Jahn, and Keil, and the commentaries of Rosenmuller, Knobel, Tuch, Schröder, and Schultz. The principal English works on the subject are Colenso's The Pentateuch Examined; Graves' Lectures on the last Four Books of the Pentateuch; Dr. S. Davidson's Introduction to the Old TestaThe chief foundation of these various rival theories ment; Dr. P. Davidson's Lectures on the Pentais the fact pointed out by Astruc, that the two names teuch; Rawlinson on the Pentateuch; M'Caul on the of the Deity, Elohim and Jehovah, are interchanged in Mosaic Cosmogony in Aids to Faith; and the comGenesis: in some portions the former, in others the pilers of the first volume of the Commentary on latter, prevails almost exclusively. On this basis is the Bible, issued in 1871 under the superintendence founded the assertion that the Pentateuch was composed of the Speaker of the House of Commons, and others. by two principal writers, called respectively the Elohist PENTECOST (Gr. wavrnnootos, 'fiftieth'), a Jewish and the Jehorist, although many portions of the work festival observed on the fiftieth day after the feast of are ascribed neither to the one nor to the other, but to unleavened bread, or the day following the feast of the various subsidiary writers or documents. But while Passover, and, as it occurred about the beginning of the thus confidently affirming that there are sufficient harvest, apparently instituted in thanksgiving to God marks to distinguish the style of one part of the Penta- for the fruits of the earth. It was also considered as teuch from the other,' no two of these critics agree in commemorative of the giving of the Law, which took assigning these parts to their respective authors. Until place on the fiftieth day after the departure from Egypt. within the last twenty-five years the discussions on the At Pentecost the Holy Spirit descended on the assemmatter were chiefly confined to Germany,but they have now bled disciples, as recorded in the book of Acts (c. ii.); found their way into England primarily by Dr. Davidson, and in remembrance of an event so wonderful, a special the Essayists and Reviewers,' and Bishop Colenso. celebration has always been held in the Christian church at Whitsuntide. (Bingham, Origines Eccles., book xx.,

PENTELICUS. [ATTICA.]

Neologists have sought to disprove the authenticity of the Pentateuch by asserting that the art of writing chap. 6.) was invented subsequently to the age of Moses-an assertion which has been refuted by overwhelming PENTLAND FIRTH. [ORKNEY ISLANDS.] evidence. It has been alleged, too, that the language PENUMBRA (incomplete shade'), that portion of of the Pentateuch differs less from that of the later space which, in the eclipse of a heavenly body, is partly, books of the Old Testament than might have been but not entirely, deprived of its light. In a solar eclipse, expected if Moses were its author. But, as Havernick as long as any part of the sun is visible, the parties has shown, this objection overlooks the characteristic observing are in the penumbra, and not in the umbra, stability of the Oriental languages, and that the Penta- or complete shadow. teuch itself, by its high authority, exerted a powerful | influence in giving fixity to the language and literature of the Hebrews. But in addition to this, the style of the work bears unmistakable marks of antiquity, containing as it does a number of characteristic grammatical formations, and characteristic phrases and words, which do not occur in the other parts of the Old Testament. Besides this, no system of partition, whether the Fragment or the Document system, can ever explain the internal unity of the Pentateuch in its existing form, which is now generally recognized.

PENZANCE. [CORNWALL]
PEONY. [PEONIA.]

PEPIN, King of France, called le Bref, or 'the Short,' son of Charles Martel, was Maire du Palais after his father's death, under the nominal King Childeric III., for the kingdom of Neustria and Burgundy; and when his brother Carloman gave up the government of Austrasia, and retired to a monastery, he obtained the entire authority. Childeric was dethroned in 750, and Pepin was constituted king. He waged successful wars against the Saxons, the Bavarians, and other German nations; defeated the duke of Aquitania, and reunited his duchy to the domains of the crown; favoured the clergy, and fixed the annual general assemblies of the Frankish nation for the month of May. He died at St. Denis, September, 768, at fifty-four years of age, in the seventeenth year of his reign. His son Charlemagne succeeded him as king of the Franks.

PEPO, a Latin term used by botanists to express that kind of fruit of which the gourd is the type. PEPPER [PIPERACEAE.]

The genuineness and authenticity of the Pentateuch has been defended with marked success by Hengstenberg, Havernick, Dreschler, Ranke, Kurtz, and other profound scholars, who have reconciled and removed very many of the alleged discrepancies and contradictions in the books of Moses, and have shown not only that there is a unity of design in the Pentateuch, but that this unity of design can only be explained on the supposition of a single author, who could have been none other than Moses. This conclusion is powerfully corroborated by the great fact that the laws and history of the Penta- PEPPERMINT. [MENTHA PIPERITA.] teuch form the foundation of the national life and PEPSINE, a peculiar organic compound, which in the <haracter of the Jews, and that the latter is unintelligible proportion of 0.78, according to Schmidt, to 100 parts, if separated from the former. The influence of the law enters into the composition of the gastric juice. It is upon the whole life, civil and religious, of the Hebrew an albuminoid body, soluble in water, but not in alcohol. nation after their settlement in the land of Canaan, has The other constituents of gastric juice are water, sugar, been traced with great ability and care by Hengstenberg, | lactic acid, ammonia, chlorides of sodium and potassium,

phosphates of lime, magnesia, and iron, in different | great facilities for obtaining manure; while on the quantities. It is useful in dyspeptic diseases.

mountains around, which are very accessible, good coffee land may undoubtedly be found.'

PEPYS, SAMUEL, was born February 23, 1632. His father was a tailor in London. Pepys was educated The anarchy and misgovernment generally prevailing at St. Paul's School, London, and at Trinity College, in the state of Perak and its dependency, Laroot—as in Cambridge. Through the interest of the earl of Sand- most of the other portions of the Malay peninsula outwich he was nominated clerk of the Acts of the Navy, side the limits of British territory or influence-is very and he entered on the duties of his office in 1660. In deplorable; yet this is one of the districts which are this employment he continued till 1673; and during most closely connected with the English government by those great events, the plague, the fire of London, and a series of treaties, no less than five such engagements the Dutch war, the care of the navy in a great measure having been entered into prior to the treaty of Pulo rested upon him alone. The duke of York being lord- Pangkor, concluded on the 20th of January, 1874, by high-admiral, Pepys was by degrees drawn into a close Sir Andrew Clarke. The first of these was signed as personal connection with him, and had also the misfor- long ago as 1818; the others in 1825 and 1826. tune to experience some part of the calumnies with which Under the treaty of 1874 it was agreed that a British he was loaded during the time of The Popish Plot.' resident should be received at the court of Perak, and The absence, not only of evidence, but even of ground for an assistant-resident at Laroot. To the former place suspicion, did not prevent him from being committed to Mr. Birch, colonial secretary at Singapore, was appointed, the Tower (May, 1679). He was discharged, and rose and in consequence of disputes between two claimants to be secretary of the Admiralty, which office he retained to the succession he was murdered in his bath in till the Revolution. On the accession of William III. November, 1875. The murder was succeeded by a he retired into private life. He died May 26, 1703. rising of Malays, who attacked the residency; but imPepys had an extensive knowledge of naval affairs. mediate measures were taken by the governor of the He understood and practised music; and he was a toler-Straits Settlements to suppress it, and they were forable judge of painting, sculpture, and architecture. In tunately soon crowned with success. 1684 he was elected president of the Royal Society. He published Memoirs relating to the State of the Royal Navy of England for ten years, determined December, 1688,' 8vo, London, 1690. His 'Memoirs,' comprising his diary from 1659 to 1669, and a selection from his private correspondence, were edited by Lord Braybrooke, in 2 vols. 4to, London, 1825, republished in 5 vols. 8vo, London, 1828. A new edition, with additional notes, by the Rev. Mynors Bright, was published in 1876.

PERA. [CONSTANTINOPLE]

PERAK, an independent state of the Malay peninsula, extending along its western coast, between 3° 40' and 5° N. lat., having the English province of Wellesley on the N., Salangore on the S., and the Straits of Malacca on the W. The principal products of the country are tin, rice, and rattans. The capital, Perak, is a small town on the river of the same name. The native population of the state is reported to be rapidly declining. It was formerly estimated at from 35,000 to 50,000; but Sir Andrew Clark, the governor of the Straits Settlements, recently asserted that he did not believe there were then more than 25,000, if so many. Their places are, to some extent, being filled by Chinese immigrants.

Perak was visited some few years ago by Mr. Birch, who, in a speech before the legislative council at Singapore, gave the following account of the country, of which, he said, the resources are as yet almost unknown and entirely undeveloped :-Tin and other minerals exist in large quantities. The river Perak is a very magnificent one. At least 150 miles from the mouth it is over 400 feet wide, and as the tidal influence extends a very short distance from its mouth, it may be well imagined what rich and fertile lands are to be found along its valley. But the greatest resources of this fine country lie in its soil. If any capitalist can be induced, along the valley of the Perak river, to undertake the cultivation of tobacco, of sugar, or of indigo, he will very soon prove the success with which he can work. The climate is excellent; the water pure and in abundance, and very easily available for purposes of irrigation; the soil is remarkably rich, with large herds of cattle at every village, and consequently

PERAMBULATION. A perambulation is a walking through or over ground for the purpose of settling bounaries, and preserving the evidence of them. There is a very ancient English custom of perambulating parishes in Rogation week. It was derived from an old Roman practice called Terminalia, or festival in honour of the god Terminus. In Christian times it was designed to supplicate the divine blessing on the fruits of the earth, and to preserve a correct knowledge of, and due respect for, the bounds of parochial and individual property. The religious portion of the custom has been entirely done away with, but the 'beating of the boundaries' is still carried out in many parishes, and the evidence afforded by these perambulations is recognized in law. Usage will justify the parishioners in following the boundary over any man's land. The perambulation is usually made once a year by the clergyman, churchwardens, and charity school-boys. In former times it was customary to whip the latter at certain stages of the perambulation, in order to impress the boundaries on their memories. In Scotland questions of disputed marches were settled under the Act 1597, c. 79, by brieves of perambulation addressed to the sheriff, but which are now in desuetude.

PERAMBULATOR (Lat. ambulo, 'I walk'), an instrument in general use for measuring distances on roads. It consists principally of a wheel upon which it runs, and an index which shows the number of turns of such wheel reduced into miles, furlongs, poles, and yards.

The carriage or stock is made of wood, and is about 3 feet long. At one end is a handle for the person who uses it, and the other is furnished with sockets in which the axle of the wheel turns. Upon the stock, and just in front of the handle, is the dial-plate, with its two hands, by which the distance is registered. The wheel is 8 feet 3 inches, or pole, in circumference; and upon one end of its axis is a small pinion, which works into a similar pinion at the end of a rod passing up the stock or carriage to the works beneath the dial-plate. Motion is communicated by means of this rod to a worm or micrometer-screw, which turns once round for each revolution of the carriage-wheel of the perambulator. This worm works into a wheel of 80 teeth, which is

41

PER CAPITA.

moved forward one tooth for every pole, and carries a hand or index, which makes one revolution for 40 poles or one furlong. On the axis of this wheel is a pinion of 8 teeth, which works into a wheel of 40 teeth, and on the axis of this second wheel is a pinion of 10 teeth, which moves a wheel of 160 teeth. This last wheel carries another hand, which makes one revolution for 80 of the former, that is for 10 miles.

There are other instruments for the same or similar purposes, bearing different names, as Waywiser and Odometer; but the construction of all of them is very similar.

Waywiser is the name generally given to that form of the instrument which is applied to a carriage, in which, by a slight adaptation to one of the wheels of the carriage, it is made to register the number of turns of such wheel, in the same manner as the perambulator. [PEDOMETER.]

PER CAPITA. The distribution of an intestate's estate among persons equally is termed a division per capita (or by the head'). If the next of kin be the intestate's brothers, A, B, and C, here his effects are divided into three equal portions and distributed per capita, one to each; but if one of these brothers had been dead, leaving three children, then the distribution must be per stir pes (or by the stock'), viz., one-third to A's three children, one-third to B, and one-third to C.

PERCUSSION.

It includes sixteen genera.
pectoral fins, seven branchiostegous rays, and two dorsal
fins.

The second division comprises those species in which
the first or spinous dorsal is united with the second or
soft-rayed dorsal, so as to form one continuous fin, and
is composed chiefly of the great genus Serranus.

The third division embraces those Percoïd fishes
which differ from the preceding in having less than
Like the Serrani, they
seven branchiostegous rays.
have the first and second dorsal fins united, but there
is often a deep emargination between the spinous and
soft-rayed portion.

The fourth division is composed of such species as
It contains
have more than five soft rays to the ventral fins, and
more than seven branchiostegous rays.
three genera.

In the fifth division of Percoid fishes the ventral fins
are placed in advance of the pectorals. It contains five
genera.

In the sixth division the ventral fins are placed behind the pectorals. It comprises three genera. PERCOIDES. [PERCIDE.]

PERCOLATION, a chemical process for the extraction of certain soluble properties of bodies by filtering a liquid through them. In the British pharmacopoeia, thirty-nine tinctures and nine extracts are prepared by this process. The vessel generally employed is of a conical form with a porous bottom. The article from which an extract is required is placed in the vessel, and over it is poured a suitable fluid, which percolates into a receiver of sufficient size. The process is familiar to every housewife, who prepares her coffee by pouring over it boiling water, and allowing it to filter gradually into the coffee vessel.

PERCH, or POLE. This measure, though now mostly used as a square measure (a perch usually meaning a square perch, or a square of a perch in length and breadth), was originally a measure of length, arising out of the custom of measuring small portions of land by a staff or pole. The word pertica, from which it comes, means a wooden staff. But the pole with which PERCUSSION, in Medicine, is the method of eliciting land was measured not only differed very much in various countries, but in different parts of the same country. By sounds by striking the surface of the body, for the puran early statute, entitled Compositio Ulnarum et Per-pose of determining the condition of the organs subjacent ticarum,' the perch was fixed at 16 feet, or 5 yards; and four perticatæ (though that word is not used) were defined as an acre. A perch is the quarter of a chain, and a square perch contains 304 square yards.

PERCHE, LE, a district in France, formerly a dependency of the province of Maine, and now forming portions of the departments of Orne, Eure-et-Loire, and Eure, was divided into Haut-Perche, of which Mortagne was the capital; Perche-Gouet, capital, Montmirail; Terres-Françaises, chief town, Tour-Grise-de-Verneuil ; and Thymerais, of which Châteauneuf-en-Thymerais was the chief town.

to the parts struck.

This means of diagnosis was first employed by Avenwas afterbrugger in the middle of the last century; wards extensively adopted by Corvisart in investigating the diseases of the heart; but its value, like that of all the other branches of auscultation, was not fully appreciated till Laennec made them the subject of his peculiar study. Since his time its value has been considerably enhanced by the labours of M. Piorry.

Everybody knows that when a hollow body is struck, there is a vibration produced in the air within it, which being communicated through the walls to the external PERCHLORIC ACID (C1 07, HO) is a heavy, colour- air, produces a ringing sound, whose tone varies with less, volatile liquid, not soluble at 30° Fahr., which, if the size of the hollow body, the material of which it is dropped upon ether, alcohol, or charcoal, explodes vio- composed, and many other circumstances; but that if lently. 'When sulphuric acid is poured upon chlorate the same body be filled with a fluid or a nearly solid of potash,' says Brande, 'gaseous oxide of chlorine is substance, no other sound is produced than that which evolved, and the saline matter which remains is a mix- results from the striking together of two solid bodies of ture of bisulphate of potash and perchlorate of potash; the same materials as the wall of the cavity and the by washing it with cold water the former salt is dissolved, substance with which it is struck. On these circumbut the latter remains in the form of a white powder.' stances the practice of percussion is based. If any part Mix this with thrice its weight of concentrated sulphuric of the body beneath which there is a hollow organ, or acid, apply heat, and white vapours are thrown off, one containing air in tubes, be struck, a resonance is which condense in the receiver as a colourless crystal-produced; if any part which lies over a solid or a fluid noise of two solid and rather soft bodies. line substance, and when rectified at 230° Fahr. yield be similarly struck, the sound emitted is merely the dul' pure perchloric acid.

PE'RCIDE, or Percoides of Cuvier, a family of acanthopterygious fishes, of which the Common Perch (Perca Auviatilis) may be considered as the type.

The first division of the Percoïdes, according to Cuvier, comprises all those species which have the ventral fins placed under the pectorals, five soft rays to the

The modes of employing percussion are various. The simplest and most convenient is to place one finger of the left hand flat upon the part to be examined, and to strike it lightly but rather sharply with the ends of the three first fingers of the right hand set close together on the same level. Instruments called pieximeters have

been invented by M. Piorry and others, but are now
rarely used.
Percussion is chiefly employed in the
diagnosis of diseases of the lungs, heart, and abdominal

organs.

PERCUSSION CAPS. [CAPS, PERCUSSION.] PERCUSSION, CENTRE OF, the point of a system which moves about a fixed axis, at which a force may act in such a manner as to produce no pressure on the axis. Its distance from the axis is the same as that of the centre of oscillation.

from the Himalaya mountains, have a rudimentary blunt spur on the tarsus, which, with their general plumage and red legs and bill, seem to justify fully the prince's separation.

The Greek Partridge inhabits the Alps, the Tyrol, Switzerland, Italy, Turkey, and the Archipelago. Perdiz petrosa (the Barbary Partridge) is common on that part of the African coast and in the southern portions of Europe, especially those which are washed by the Mediterranean sea. In the mountainous parts of Spain, and PERCUSSION LOCK, a lock for fire-arms, in which in the islands of Majorca and Minorca, Sardinia, Corsica, the gunpowder is exploded by fire arising from the Malta, and Sicily, it is abundant; but it is rare in France, percussion of fulminating powder, which is contained and not known in the north of Europe. Perdix rubra, in a small copper vessel, called a percussion cap. The the common Red-legged, or Guernsey Partridge, is principle of percussion locks is, that a small copper cap abundant in France and Italy, rare in Switzerland, and or thimble, filled with a detonating powder (nitrate of still rarer in Germany and Holland. Mr. Gould observes silver), is placed on the nipple of the touch-hole, and that it is confined to the European continent and the forcibly struck with the hammer of the lock when the islands of Guernsey and Jersey, but M. Temminck states trigger is pulled. The detonating material being thus that it is found in Japan, where it was observed by Dr. ignited, instantaneously communicates the ignition to Von Siebold and M. Bürger, identical in form and colour the gunpowder in the interior of the musket or rifle. of plumage. It has been introduced into our preserves, The old system of lock and flint was entirely superseded and is now rather plentiful in some parts, especially by the use of percussion caps, which have invariably in Suffolk. But we doubt whether those who have been found most effective, though these, in their turn, introduced it have much reason to be pleased with are rendered unnecessary by the needle-gun. the importation.

Genus II. Francolinus. This is the genus Pternistes of Wagler, and Chatopus of Swainson.

The rudimentary spurs of the Red-legged Partridges become in the Francolins well developed.

Geographical Distribution of the Genus.-The old continent and its islands. The form occurs in Europe, Asia, and Africa. The Francolins are forest birds, perch on trees, and feed on seeds, bulbs, &c.

PERCY, THOMAS, D.D., was born in 1728 in Bridgnorth, in Shropshire. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, and early in life obtained the vicarage of Easton Mauduit, on which he resided, and the rectory of Wilby. In 1761, 1762, and 1763, he published translations from the Icelandic of five pieces of Runic poetry. In 1764 he published a new version of Solomon's Song,' with a commentary and notes; and in 1765, a Key to the New Testament,' which has been Examples.-The European Francolin (Francolinus reprinted several times. In the same year appeared the Europaus). Locality, the southern parts of Europe, work by which he is best known, ' Reliques of Ancient Asia, and the north of Africa. The Ferruginous and English Poetry.' In or about 1766 he was appointed Gray Francolin (Francolinus Ponticerianus). Locality, domestic chaplain to the duke of Northumberland. In Hindustan. The Piliated Francolin (Francolinus pile1769 he was made one of the chaplains of the king; inatus). Locality, South and Central Africa. 1778, dean of Carlisle; and in 1782, bishop of Dromore. Genus III. Coturnix. This genus is confined to the In 1770 he printed the Northumberland HouseholdBook,' and a poem, the subject of which is connected with the history of the Percy family, called 'The Hermit of Warkworth.' In the same year appeared his translation, with notes, of The Northern Antiquities' of M. Mallet. He died at the palace of Dromore, September 30, 1811.

PERDI'CIDE, the name of a family, or, according to some, of a subfamily of the Tetraonida. In the latter case the term should be Perdicinæ.

The birds of this group are widely spread, no quarter of the globe being without some of the family, all of which are more or less esteemed as food.

Genus I. Perdix (Starna, Bonaparte). Example, the Common Partridge (Perdix cinerea; Starna cinerea, Bonaparte). It is the Perdice, Pernisette, Pernigona, and Starna of the Italians; Perdrix des Champs of the French; Rebhuhn of the Germans.

Localities. Mr. Gould (and he is corroborated by other authors) considers this species as strictly European; though M. Temminck speaks of it as a visitor to Egypt and the Barbary coast.

The habits of this species are too well known to need a detailed account.

The above form has been separated from the other partridges, Perdix Græca, Briss., Perdix rubra, Perdix petrosa, &c., by the prince of Musignano. The first of these is most probably the wigdig (Perdix) of Aristotle. All these, which are European, as well as Perdiz Chukar

Old World and Australia. Example, the European Quail (Coturnix dactylisonans). This well-known migratory bird seems to be the Ortyx (gru) ot Aristotle, who mentions the bird repeatedly in such terms as to its habits and migration as to leave little or no doubt on the point. It is the Coturnix of the Romans; Quaglia of the Italians; Caille of the French; Wachtel of the Germans; and Quail of the British. Locality, Europe, Asia, North Africa; no gallinaceous bird being more widely spread in the Old World.

The Quail is polygamous; and the nest of the female, if nest it may be called-for it is little more than a hole scratched in the ground, generally in some field of green wheat-contains, in this country, from six to twelve or fourteen bluish-green eggs. On the continent as many as eighteen or twenty have been found; but here six or eight is the usual number of a bevy, as the brood is called: covey is the term applied to a family of partridges. Several allied species are exclusively Indian.

Genus IV. Ortyx. This genus is restricted to America. Example, the Virginian or Maryland Quail (Ortyx Virginianus). This species is generally spread over North America. It is the Quail of the inhabitants of New England, and the Partridge of the Pennsylvanians.

For a full and very interesting account of the history of this species, see Wilson's 'American Ornithology.' They rarely,' he says, frequent the forest, and are most numerous in the vicinity of well-cultivated plantations where grain is plentiful. They, however, occasion