Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 1.djvu/829

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His mother obferved the figns of puberty on him at two years old, which continued to encreafe very quick, and fooji arrived at the ufual dandard. At four years old, he was able to lift and tofs the common bundles of hay in ftables into the horfes racks ; and at fix years old, could lift burthens which were as much as a fturdy fellow of twenty could well manage. The mother had had four children before him, which were no way remarkable, and he was no larger than other children when brought into the world. It was remarkable, that this youth, though a man in ftature, was but a child in underftanding ; he was no greater a proficient in knowledge than children of his age t and the boys plays, fuch as other children diverted themfelves with at his age, were alfo his favourite amufements. This is no way fur- prifing, fince knowledge is only acquired by a fucceffion of ideas which neceffarily require time ; while on the other hand, the encreafe of the body and its ftrength depend only on the continual addition of matter which many accidents might caufe to be made more readily, and more abundantly than ufual. Memoirs Acad. Scien. Par. 1736. Nor is it peculiar to boys to groiv fometimes in this extraor- dinary manner ■> there are not wanting indances of a like nature in the other fex. There is an account in the Paris Memoirs, of a girl who at three months old had the menfes regularly come on, and growing very fait in her younger time, was, at the age of four years, three feet fix inches high, and had her limbs well proportioned to that height; her breads large and plump, and the parts of generation like thofc of a girl of eighteen ; fo that there is no doubt but file was mar- riageable at that time, and capable of being a mother of children. Thefe things are more fingular and marvellous with us, than they would appear in fome other places, where the females come fooner to maturity. In the Eaft Indies, there are fome places where the girls have children at nine years old.

Growth Half-penny, a rate fo called, and paid in fome places for the tithe of every fat ox, or other unfruitful cattle. Blount.

GRUARIf, in our old writers, the principal officers of the foreft in general. The word comes from the old French gruyer, which hgnifies the fame.

GRUB, the Englifti name of the hexapode worms, or mag- gots, hatched from the eggs of beetles. See Scarabjeus. Grubs are an excellent bait for many kinds of fifh. In ang- ling for the grayling, the am grub is to be preferred to all others. This is plump, milk white, but round from head to tail, and has a red head. There is alfo another grub, which is very common, and is longer and flenderer than the afh grub. It is yellower and tougher, and is known by having a red head, and two rows of legs all along the belly. The trout and grayling ufualty frequent the fame places, and it is not uncommon to take the trout while fifhing for the other. Thefe grubs are to be kept in bran, in which they will grow tougher than they were at firft ; but the afh grub is always fo tender, that it is difficult to make a good bait of it. The bed method is to wrap it in a piece of ft iff hair with the arming, leaving it Handing out about a draw's breadth at the head of the hook, fo as to keep the grub from to- tally flipping off when baited. The horfe hair that the hook is fattened to fhould be as white as poffible, that it may referable the colour of the bait, and not be fufpected.

Grub of the box, or box puceron, in natural hiftory, a name given to a fort of infect approaching to the nature of the puceron of the elder and other trees, but differing from that animal in fome effential characters, and being more properly of the fame genus with the fig- infect or fa\fe puceron. Reau- mur's Hift. Inf. Vol. 6. p. 100. See FiG-infecl. In the months of March and April the leaves of box are often found forming a fort of ball at the extremities of fome of the branches. Thefe balls are- hollow, and arc form'd of the two outer leaves bent each into the half of a fphere and joined at their edges, and of feveral other frnaller inner ones rounded in the fame manner. All thefe balls are the places of abode of infects of the falfe puceron kind ; they have flat bodies in the maimer of the fig infect: ; but the cafes of their wings are lefs obfervable. There are different numbers of thefe animals found in different balls of the plant: fome containing twenty or thirty, others only three or four, and thefe are fometimes found crawling about loof'e in the cavity, fometimes between the outer and the inner leaves. Among thefe infects there is always found a great quantity of a yellowifli white matter of a tolerably firm confidence ; but fuch that it may eafily be flatted by pref- fing it between the fingers. This is fometimes found in loofe and regular grains, refembling fmall feeds, and fometimes in long and flat pieces. This is the dung of the animal, it is often feen hanging in part out of the anus, while they are voiding it in the round grains ; and often the long pieces hang out to a great length from the anus, making a fort of tail twice or tree times as long as the body of the animal. This very much refembles the common vermicelli, and is of a fwcet and very agreeable tafte ; for it is the juices of the plant very little altered, retaining yet their faccharine nature, and greatly refembling the common manna. Mr. Reaumur Suppl. Vor., L

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fuppofes this might be of great ufe in medicine, and ob- ferves that it would eafily be gathered in the neceflary quan- tity for experimenting, as the box affords thefe animals in vaft abundance, and every ball of the leaves would yield the quantity of the bignefs of a pea of the matter. As the common puceron therefore voids by ftool a faccharine water, this creature voids a kind of manna, and this when new- ly excluded from the body of the animal is not firm and hard, but foft and Vifeous. It dries as it becomes ex- pofed to the air, and fometimes it is a difeafe in the animal to have it dry too quickly, or be too hard before it is voided ; and it is in this cafe that it forms a long tail to the crea- ture. Thefe animals have the fame fort of trunk with the pucerons, and fuck the juices of trees in the fame manner ; and as the wounds given by the true puctrons of the poplar oc- cafion its leaves to fold themfelves together, and make a fort of cafe; fo probably it is the biting or wounding of the leaves of the box by thefe animals, that makes its leaves form thefe balls at the end of the branches. It is to be ob- ferved however, that the balls of the prefent year only are to be fearched for thefe creatures ; thofe of former years having been long abandoned by them, and being ufually in- habited by fmall fpiders, or other minute infects. Reaumur's Hid. Inf. Vol. 6. p. 107.

Thefe infects change their fkin feveral times in the manner of the pucerons, and they change their colour at the fame time. They are at firft reddifh, but they are then extremely fmall j after this they throw off a fkin and become yellow- ifli ; after this they are of a deeper yellow, fpotted with black ; and finally when at their full growth they are green- ifh, and have black antenna-, The exuviae which thefe creatures leave behind them, have often a grain of the excrement remaining fixed to them.

Mr. Reaumur, who took great pains to know the hiftory of thefe minute animals, found tiiat they finally became flies of a peculiar kind, refembling thofe of the fig-infect ; they hopped in the manner of grafshoppers, but only a little way at a time, and he was able to dif cover the parts peculiar to the male and female fex, in the different individuals, but never could find any eggs, or embryo animals in the latter.

Vir.e Grubs, in the hiftory of infects. See Vine.

GRUBBING, the term ufed by our farmers to exprefs the taking up the roots of trees out of the ground. Several oc- cafions offer for the doing this •, as when trees are old and paft growing to any ufe, the roots raufi be taken up, that young trees may be planted in their place. This is a chargeable operation in mod places, but in fome countries the farmers have devifed a machine, which docs a great part of the work in a much fhorter time than in any other way can be done. It is a hook of iron, of about two feet and a half long, with a large iron ring faftened' to its draft end or handle. The whole indrument may be made for about three or four ftiillings, and is to be ufed in this manner. The ground is firft to be cleared away about the root, and 'any draggling fide roots found running horizontally are to be cut off. They then fuften the point of the hook to fome part of the flump or root, and putting a long and ftrong lever through the ring, two men at the end of it go round forcing .it every way, 'till they tear the root out, twifting the top roots off at fome diitance under ground. The diygmrr down to which in the common Way is one great article of the exp-ence. It is very effectual' in dubbing up the roots of- -the underwood, but when large tree roots are to be taken up by it, it is beft to cleave them firft with wedges into feveral pieces, and then pull them out feparately. Mor- timer'?- Hufhandry.

GRUINA, the crave fly, a name given by fome authors to the tipula, or father long legs, from its legs being like thofe of a crane.

GRUMOSE Roots, are thofe which are compofed of feveral fmall knobs, fuch are thofe of the anemones, and of the little celandine.

GRUNDEL, or Grundling, in zoology, a name ufed by fome for the common loach, or loche, a fmall frefh water fifh, known among writers by the names of cobitis and fun- diilus. Gefner de aq. p. 486. See the article C031TIS.

Grundling, in ichthyology, a name given alfo by the Germans to the gobio jiuviaiiiis, or common gudgeon. Thefe nth, though of different genera, the one being a cyprinus, and the other a cobitis, yet are fo perplexed by this common name, that the Germans in general do not diftinguifh their difference. They have bciiue this, however, their peculiar names for each of the two, the loach or cobitis being call- ed the fmerle and fmerling, a name never applied to the gudgeon ; and that being called a gobc and a grefling, names never given to the loach. When there are fb many diftinct names tor each of thefe fifties, it is ftrange to find the authors of that nation, who write in their own language, fo often ufing, indead of either, this name gruhdling, which is common to both.

GRUNDULUS, in ichthyology, a name given by Figulys and others, to the fifh called by us the loach, or grund- ling ; it is a fpecies of cobitis, called by authors in general ^2 P ctiitU