Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 1.djvu/830

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tab'ith larbatula, and cobitis fiuviaiilis. Artedi has di- ftinguifhed it by the name of the fmooth fpotted cobitis, with the cylindric body. See the article CoBITis.

GRUMA, a word ufed by fome chemical writers, as a name for crude tartars.

GRUNNIENS Pifds t the grunting fjh ? the name of a fifh caught in many parts of the Eaft Indian Teas, and called by the Dutch there knorre pot. It feems of the gurnet or gur- nard kind, and nearly related to the guabi-coara of the Brafilians. When it is firft taken out of the water, it makes a remarkable grunting noife. It has two fide lines on each fide, running from the gills to the tail ; the one of which is brown, and the other yellow. It is covered with very fmall fcales, and is a very fat and flefhy fifh. It grows to about fix or feven inches long, and its head is large and ill fhaped. It is a very well tailed fifh. Ray 3 s Ichthyolog.

GRUS, the crane, the name of a genus of birds very tall and remarkable for the length of their legs and neck, of which there are three known fpecies. i. The common crane, the body of which is fo large, as fometimes to weigh ten or twelve pounds, and when meafured from the tip of the beak to the toes extended, is five feet long. Its beak is of a greenifh black and is long and pointed, its wings are large, and its legs and feet black, its toes very long. But what is moft obfervable in this bird, is the conftrucfion of its wind pipe or afpera arteria, which runs deep into the breaft, by means of a foramen prepared for it, and there fufFering fome wind- ings and turnings, goes out again at the fame pafiagc, and then defcends into the lungs. It is a very common bird in Italy, and other places, and fometimes comes over to us in England, large flocks of them being fometimes (een in Lincolnfhire, and Cambridgfhire in furnmer. It has been faid that they build here, but this wants confirmation. It is fuppofed by many, that this bird eats fifh, but erroneoufly, the ftrucfure of its ftomach plainly fhows it a granivorous bird, and its flefh is very delicate, and much valued in the Italian markets.

fame gray colour; its tail is fo fhort that the wings hide it, and it is not feen. Its beak is longer than that of our crane, but its moft obvious diftinction is, that it has on the top of its head, from the infertion of the beak to the ■crown, a rough red fkin, befet with a few loofe hairs. 3. The laft fpecies is the grus Balearica, the Majorca crane ; this is of the fhape of the ftork, but has not its long beak, but that of the crane, and is diftmguifhed by a fine thick ftiewy creft which it carries on its head. This is not made lip of feathers, but of hairs like hogs bridles. It runs very fwiftly, and feeds on herbs and com like the hens and tur- keys. Ray's Ornithol. p. 200, 201.
 * 2. The Indian crane. This is fmaller than ours, and of the

The general diftinctions of the crane kind from the herons are thefe. 1. The claw of the middle toe is not ferrated. 2. They are much larger. 3. Their beak is fhorter, Be- fide thefe, the make of their ftomach, guts, and above all, of their afpera arteria, greatly diftinguifh them.

Grus, the crane, in the Linnsean fyfterr* of zoology. This is made a diftindf. genus of the order of the macrorynchae, or long beaked. The characfcriftic of this genus is, that the head is criftated or crefted, and almofr, bare of feathers. Linnesi Syft. Nat. p. 45.

GRYGALLUS, in zoology, the name of the female of the -urogallus. It obtained this name as if another fpecies of bird, being fo unlike the male in colour, as not to be fup- pofed to belong to the fame fpecies. See the article Grouse.

GRYLLOTALPA, the mole cricket, a creature approaching to the locuft kind, and very properly called by this name by Mouffett, as it has much of the form of the cricket, and makes a noife like it in the evening, and is like the mole, continually employed in digging the ground. It is an infect of a very unpleafant form. It is of the length and thicknefs of a man's little finger, and is of a brown colour, which is darker in the male than in the female. There are on each fide of the anus two hairy procefles, refembling the tails of mice; its belly is compofed of eight joints, and is covered with as many fcales which are of a pale flefh colour, and are covered with fhort hair. The back is covered by a pair of pointed wings, along each of which there runs a black ftreak or line. Thefe wings fold any way at the creature's pleafure, and when fully expanded are very large. Over thefe lye the antenna:; thefe are variegated alfo with black, and reach about half the length of the wings. It has only four legs '; the hinder pair are long and fit for hopping ; the anterior pair are fhort, and furnifhed with a fort of hands for digging in the manner of the mole. The bread, is covered with a cruftaceous fubftance which is blackifh, and hairy on the outfide, and fmooth and pale within. The eyes are very bright and black, and are very hard, and the mouth is wide and has two tonfils, and teeth in both jaws. This creature lives underground, and is principally found in damp and boggy places. There has for many years been a breed of them in the gardens of lord Burlington at Chifwick, under the grafs walk toward the lower end of the canal, where they are

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now very. numerous. They come out in the dufk of the evening, and make a very lowd noife of the nature of that of the cricket.

The mole cricket moves very flowly, and Goedartius is of opinion, that its wings were given it rather as an orna- ment, than as a thing of ufe} or if they have any real ufa that it is the covering and defending the tender body of the creature^ which is very foft, and eafily liable to acci- dents ; and Mouffett fays, that its flights are no more than long leaps. But we have a very different account of the ufe this creature makes of its wings in the German ephemerides. Mentzelius, in a paper there, declares this to be one of the moft mifchievous infects of the creation. He fays it lives equally well under ground, in the air, or under water ; that while it is under ground, it does infinite mifchief by- burrowing under the beds of a garden, and eating the roots of flowers, and that in the night it comes out, and taking wing fettles upon the fruit trees, where it does little lefs mifchief; and all this the author affirms from his own experience, in the gardens where he lived. Mouffett's Hift. Inf. Ray's Hift. Inf. p. 64. Goedartius de Inf. Ephemerid. Germ. Anno. 10. Obf. 48.

This creature is very nice in the confrrueuon of its neft. This is always under ground, and it choofes a folic! clay for the purpofe ; in this it makes a large cavity, with a fmall paffage to go in and out at, and in this it depofits a hundred and fifty or more eggs. When the whole number of eggs is laid, the creature flops up the hole at which it was ufed to go in and out, with a large piece of firm clay, and then burrows away all round, and all under the neft. By this means fhe keeps the fides of the neft firm and clofe, fo that no infect can get in to cat the eggs ; and the whole neft being thus rendered loofe and moveable, fhe is at the pains of raifing it toward the furface in warm weather, that the eggs may have the advantage of the fun towards their hatching ; and in cold weather fhe finks it deeper into the ground to defend it from frofts. This has been obferved by Goedartius, and is recorded in his hiftory of the crea- ture. Swammerdam obferves, that this creature, while young, has four fmall protuberances on its back, and has no wings over the body, and that thefe are the rudiments of the wings, which by degrees become expanded afterwards. The creature in this ftate being of the fame nature with the grafshopper found without wings, and thence called bruchus and attebalus. It is remarkable of this creature, that it can move backward as faft as forward, and often does fo when frighted. Goedart. de Inf. Ray's. Hift. Inf. p. 66.

GRYLLUS, the cricket, in natural hiftory, the name of s. genus of infects nearly allied to the locuft clafs. The two principal kinds are the houfe and field cricket. The firft of thefe is fmaller, and is of a brown colour fpotted with black. The latter is more than an inch long, and has a great head and very large eyes. The antenna: in this fpecies have no articulations.

Gryllus, in ichthyology, a name given by fome to the conger, or fea eel. Ritteifhufius, who has given commen- taries on Oppian's Halieutics, has given this word as the tranflation of the gongros of that author, which is the name of the fame fifh with the congrus of Ariftotle, and the other antient Greeks. Artedi has avoided the occafion of any fuch errors for the future, by not allowing it any gene- rical name at all. He makes it a fpecies of his genus' of mu- rxna, and diftinguifhes it from all the others by the name of the muraena with the rim of the back fin black. Rit- terjhujius in Oppian, See Murjena.

Gryllus vulgaris, m ichthyology, a name given by Gefner, Bellonius, and others, to the ophidion of the generality of authors; diftinguifhed by Artedi by the name of the ophi- dion with four cirri, or beards, at the lower jaw. Pliny- has mentioned this under the name of the pifc'iadm congro fimilis. See Ophidion.

GRYPHITES, in natural hiftory, the name of a very common foflile fhell, the recent, or living fifh, to which it belongs, not being known, either on our own or other fhores. It is an oblong fnell, very narrow at the head, or cardo, and gradually becoming wider to the extremity, where it ends in a circular limb. The head or beak is very crook- ed, or very much bent inward. It has been called by fome the conchites anomius rugofus, by others they are called concha rugofa, and they arc commonly known among us by the name of croiv ftones. They are very frequent in many parts of the kingdom in our gravel-pits and clay-pits, and we feem to have three or four diftinct fpecies of them. Some are extremely rounded and convex on the back, others are lefs fo, and the plates of which they arc compofed are in fome fmaller and thinner, in others much larger and thicker, in fpecimens of the fame bignefs. Hill's Hift. of FofK p. 650.

GRYPHIUS pes, the griffons claw, a name of a chirurgical inftrument defcribed by Ambrofe Parey, and ufed for ex- tracting moles from the uterus.

GRYPHUS, one of the many names ufed by chemifts for the philofophers ftone.

Gryphus, in uirgery, a fort of crooked pincers ufed by furgeons.

2 GRYPOSIS,