Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 1.djvu/1031

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ftalked yellow meadow lotus. 17. The yellow, podded, fea lotus, with a thick, fiefhy, and fmooth leaf. 18. The red lotus with angulated pods. 19. The cinquefoil lotus with a horned pod, 20. The lotus with the ornithopodium pods. 21. The cinquefoil /?raj with crooked pods, re- fembling the toes of a raven's foot. 22. The great yellow Portugal lotus. 23. The yellow Sicilian lotus with articulated pods. Town. Inft. p. 402. See Tab. I. of Botany, Clafs 10. The fruit of the lotus was, by the antients, imagined to be endowed with the virtue of making ftrangers forget their native country. Pitlfc. Lex. Ant. in voc.

Lotus glycycalamus^ a name given by the antient Greeks to an Egyptian plant according to fome, and according to others, to a rare plant, found only in few places, and only met with by accident, by people who made long and un- common voyages. The whole account given of it, by the earlier! writers, is no more than that it was of a very fweet and pfeafent tafte. Myrcpfus ufes the term frequently, and his interpreters underftand him to mean the cajfia fijlula by it. But we have accounts from Homer, that the followers of Ulyues were detained by eating the htm glycycalamus 3 and it is not at all probable, that the cafia fijlula could be the thing meant by the word in this place ; neither will the words of the author allow it to be any thing of this kind. 'I he cajfia fijlula is the fruit of a tree ; but this glycycalamus we find in Homer himfelf was an herbaceous plant. Quin- tilian a calls it exprefsly a kind of grafs, grarnen; and from the other accounts of its growing in form of reeds, and in wet places ; it feems very probable, that it was the fugar cane that they called by this name.[ — a £hibitiU. I.5. c. 8. — ]

LOVAGE, in botany. Sec Ligusticum.

LOVE-APPLE is the Engliih name for the fruit of the lyco paftcon, a plant cultivated in gardens with us, for the fin gularity of its appearance. The Portuguefe call it to?nato^ and eat the fruit, either raw or f tewed, as do alio the Jew families in England. See Lycopkrsicon.

LOUF, in the fea language. See L00F.

LOUS, Aye, in chronology, the Macedonian name for the Athenian month ccatomhteon, which was the firft of their year, and anfwercd to the latter part of our June and the beginning of July. See the articles Ecatombjeon and Month.

LOUSE. This animal affords to the microfcopic obfervcr of the works of the creation, a very delicate and beautiful Itruiture of parts. See Tab. of microfcopical Objects, Clafs 1 This creature has fo tranfparent a fhell, or fkin, that we are able to difcover more of what pafTes within its body, than in moft other living creatures. It has naturally three divi- iions, the head, the breaft, and the tail part. In the head appear two fine black eyes, with a horn that has five joints. and is furrounded with hairs Handing before each eye ; and from the end of the nofe, or fnout, there is a pointed pro- jecting part, which ferves as a fheath or cafe to a piercer, or fucker, which the creature thrufts into the fkin to draw out the blood and humours which are its deftined food, for it has no mouth that opens in the common way. This piercer, or lucker, is judged to be {wen hundred times fmallcr than a hair, and is contained in another cafe within the firft, and can be thruft out or drawn in at pkafure. Baker's M; crofcopc, p. 177.

The breaft is very beautifully marked in the middle, the fkin is tranfparent, and full of little pits, and from the under part of it proceed fix legs, each having five joints, and their ikin all the way refembling fliagreen, except at the ends where it is fmoother. Each leg is terminated by two claws, which are hooked, and are of an unequal length and fize; thefe it ufes as we would a thumb and a middle finger, and there are hairs between thefe claws as well as all over the legs. Leivenhoek's Arcan. Natur. T. 2. p. 74. On the back of the tail part there may be difcovered fome ring like divifions, abundance of hairs, and a fort of marks, which will look like the itrokes of a rod on a child that has been whipped ; the fkin of the belly feems like fliagreen, and toward the lower end is very clear, and full of pits : at the extremity of the tail there axe two femi-circular parts, covered all over with hairs, which ferve to conceal the anus.

When the laufe moves its legs, the motion of the mufclcs, which all unite in an oblong dark fpot in the middle of the breaft, may be diftinguifhed perfectly, and fomay the motion of the mufcles of the head when it moves its horns. We may Iikewife fee the various ramifications of the veins and arteries, which are white, with the pulfc regularly beating in the arteries. But the moft furprizing of all the fights is the periftaltic motion of the guts, which is continued from the itomach down to the anus. Philof. Tranf. N° 102. If one of thefe creatures, when hungry, be placed on the back of the hand, it will thruft its fucker into the fkin, and the blood it fucks may be feen paffing in a fine ftream to the fore part of the head ; where falling into a rpundiih cavity, it pailes again in a fine ftream to another circular receptacle in the middle of the head ; from thence it runs through a fmaller veflel to the breaft, trid then to a gut which reaches to the hinder part of the body, where in a curve it turns

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again a little upward. In the breaft and the gut the Wood is moved, without inrermiffion, with a great force, efpeci- ally in the gut ; and that with fo flrong a propulfion down- ward, and fuch a contraction of the gut as is very fur- prifing. Power's Mic. Obf. a.

In the upper part of the crooked afcending gut before- mentioned the propelled blood (lands ftill, and (eems to un- dergo a reparation ; fome of it becoming clear and waterifh, while other little black particles pais downward to the anus. If a laufe be placed on its back two bloody darkifh foots appear ; the larger in the middle of the body, the leffer to- ward the tail In the larger fpot, a white him or bladder contracts and dilates upwards and downwards from the head toward the tail, the motions of which are followed by a puliation of the dark bloody fpot, in or over which the white bladder feems to lie. This motion of the fyftole and diaftole is belt feen when the creature begins to grow weak; and on pricking the white bladder, which feems to be the heart, the creature always inftantly dies. The lower dark fpot is fuppofed to be the excrements in the guts. Lewenhoek's Arcan. Nat. T. 2. p. yj. Lice have been fuppofed to be hermaphrodites, but this is erroneous ; for Mr. Lewenhoek difcovered that the males have flings in their tails, which the females have not. And he fuppoies the fmarting pain thefe creatures fometimes give to be owing to their flinging with thefe flings, when made uneafy by preffure or otherwife. And this accurate obfervcr fays, that he felt little or no pain from their fuckers, though fix of them were feeding on his hand at once. The fame accurate obfervcr determining to know their true hiflory and manner of breeding, put two females into a black flocking which he wore night and day. He found, on exa- mination, that in fix days one of them had laid above fifty eggs; and upon difl'efling it, he found as many yet remain- ing in the ovary ; whence, he concludes, that in twelve days it would have laid an hundred eggs. Thefe eggs natu- rally hatch in fix days, and would then probably have pro- duced fifty males and'as many females ; and thefe females coming to their full growth in eighteen days, might each of them be fuppofed after twelve days more to lay a hundred eggs; which eggs, in fix days more, might produce a young brood of five thoufand ; fo that in eight weeks one loufe may fee five thoufand of its own defendants. A loufe may be eafily diflecled in a fmall drop of water upon a flip of glafs ; and thus placed before the microfcope, it is common to find five or fix eggs of a fize ready to be laid, and fixty or feventy others of different bignefles. In the male the penis is very remarkably diftinft, as are alfo the tefles, of which he feems to have a double pair, as is alfo the fling the ftructure of which merits a peculiar attention. Lewenhoek's Arcan. Natur. p. 78.

Many animals, both of the quadruped and flying kinds* are fubjecl to lice ; but thefe are of peculiar fpecies on each animal, and are not at all like thofe which infeft the human body. Nay, even infects are infefled with vermin, which feed on them and torment them. Several kinds of beetles are very fubjefl to lice, but particularly that kind, called thence the loufy beetle. The lice on this are very numerous, but will not be fhook off. The ear-wig is often infefled with licejuil at the letting on of its head ; thefe are white, and fhining like mites, but they are much fmaller; they are round backed, flat bellied, and have long legs, particularly the forcmofl pair. Snails of all kinds, but especially the large naked kinds, are very fubjecl to lice, which arc continually feen running about them, and de- vouring them. Numbers of little red lice, with a very fmall head, and infhape refembling a tortoife, are often feen about the legs of fpiders, and they never leave the fpider while he lives, but if he be killed they almofl inftantly forfake him. A fort of whitifh lice are very common on humble bees ; they are alfo found on ants ; aud many forts of fifhes are not lefs fubjeit to them than the land animals. Kircher fays, that he has found lice alfo on flies. Baker's Micro- fcope, p. 182.

Senior Redi, who has more accurately examined thefe crea- tures than any other author, has engraved feveral fpecies found on different animals. He calls thofe found on beafls lice, and thofe found on birds fleas. He is of opinion that every fpecies of birds has its peculiar fort of flea, different from thofe of other birds; and has obferved that they are hatched white, but that they gradually acquire a colour, like that of the feathers they live among ; yet they ufually remain tranfparent enough for a good microfcope to difcover the motion of their inteflines. The kinds he has obferved are thefe : on the hawk three different forts ; on the large pi- geon, the turtle dove, the hen, the flarling, the crane, the magpye, the heron, the leffer heron, the fwan, the tur- ky duck, the fea mew, the fmall fwan, the teal, the caflrcl, the peacock, the capon, and the crow, on each one fort ; on the moorhen three forts ; on the wild goofe two forts ; and on the crane, befide the common one, a white fort, marked as it were with Arabic characters. Men, he obferves, are fubjecl to two kinds, the common loufe, and that called the crab-loufe. He alfo found peculiar forts or,

the