Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 1.djvu/975

 LAR

With fine light earth, and the beds watered at times-, when the weather is over dry. In about fix weeks the plants will appear j they muft at this time be carefully guarded from the birds, and not expofed to the fun or winds, and muft be kept clear of weeds and watered.

In the latter end of April the following year they may be removed into beds of frefh earth, placing them at ten inches diftance every way. They are to be kept here two years, and fuch of them as feem to bend muft be tied up to a ftake to keep them upright. They may afterwards be planted in the places where they are to remain. They thrive well on the fides of barren hills, and make a very pretty figure there.

LARK, Alauda, in zoology. See Alauda.

The lark is not only a very agreeable bird for the cage* but it is alfo a very hardy one ; it will live upon almoft any food, fo that it have once a week a frefh tuft of three leaved grafs put into the cage with it.

The Jky and woodlark differ in the time of their breeding ; the former not producing her young ones till May, the lat- ter hatching them in March. In winter it is common to fee vaft flocks of Jky larks ; and yet, it is obferved, that there are fewer of their nefts found in the feafon, than of any birds that is in any degree common among us. The Jky 'lark fonietimcs builds among corn, fometimes among high grafs, and feldom has more than three young ones at a brood, fcarce ever more than four; fo that it is the more wonderful whence the large flights we fee come. The young may be taken out of the neft at a fortnight old, and are fo hardy, that they will eafily be brought up. The beft food is fhecps heart chopped with egg, and afterwards oatmeal, bruifed hempfeed, and bread, with a little egg among it. They fhould have clean fand at the bottom of the cage, but they need no perches.

The common way of taking larks is in the night, with thofe nets which are called traihmels. Thefe are ufually made of thirty fix yards in length, and about fix yards over, with fix ribs of packthread, which at the ends are put upon two poles of about fixteeh feet long, and made leffer at each end. Thefe are to be drawn along the ground by two men, and every five or fix fteps the net is made to touch the ground, otherwife it will pafs over the birds, without difturbing them, and they will efcape. When they are felt to fly up againft the net it is to be clapped down, and then all are fafe that are under it. The darkeft nights are the propereft for this fport, and the net will not only take larks but all other birds, that rooft on the ground, among which are woodcocks, fnipes, partridge, quails, field-fares 3 and feveral others.

In the depth of winter people fometimes take great numbers of larks by noofes of horfe hair. The method is this : take a. hundred, or two hundred yards of packthread ; faften at every iix inches a noofe made of double horfe hair ; at every twenty yards the line is to be pegg'd down to the ground, and fo left ready to take them. The time to ufe this is when the ground is covered with fnow, and the larks are to be allured to it by fome white oats, fcattered all the way among the noofes ; they will foon fly to thefe, and in eating will be hung by the noofes. They muft be taken away as foon as three or four are hung, otherwife the reft will be frighted ; but though the others arc feared away juft where the fportfman comes, they will be feeding at the other end of the line, and the fport may be thus continued a long time.

Sea Lark, in ornithology. See HrATicuLA.

LARKSPUR, in botany. See Delphinium.

There are eleven fpecies of this plant cultivated in the gar- dens of the curious, for the beauty of the flowers; and befide thefe a number of other varieties produced bya careful management of the feed laved from good flowers. They are to be raifed by fowing the feeds in autumn foon after they are ripe. Some fow them in fpring, but the plants are thus never fo ftrong, nor are the flowers fo large. When the young plants have got a little ftrength, they mould cither be pulled up, or tranfplanted, fo as to have them at ten inches diftance every way. They will now require no farther care, but will flower in June. Miller's Gardners Did!:.

LARUS, the Gull, in the Linnsean fyftem of zoology, is the name of a diftinct genus of birds of the anfer order. The charac- ters of which arc a pointed bill, feathered thighs, and feet placed not very far behind. Linnxi Syftem. Natur. p. 46. The general characters of this genus, according to Mr. Ray, are thefe. They are all, except a very few, web footed, their beak is long, narrow, ftrait, and a little hooked at the end, their noftrils are oblong, their wings long and ftrong, their legs fhort, and their feet fmall. Their body is very light, and covered with a thick plumage. They are great flyers, very clamorous and noify* and feed on fi{h. There are properly two fubordinate genera of thefe birds ; the firft is of thofe which are large, and have an even not forked tail, and have a tubercle in the lower chap of their bill. The other of the fmaller ones, which have all forked tails, and have no tubercle in their lower chap. Of the firft genus are the great gull, the herring gull, the Jea mall, the fea ?neb, the tarrock, the pewit, the gannet, the cataracla^ the mart'mazzs r the toddy moddy t the winder meb, the

LAS

cepphus, the brown fern, and the gaviota : and of the fecondj or fmaller kind, are the Jlerna, the f fiber tin, the fcarecrow, and four fpecies of the larus fidipes ; all which fee under their feveral heads. Ray's Ornithol. p. 261.

Larus Jidipes, in zoology, the name of a peculiar kind of bird, accounted by many to be of the larus, or gull kind, but having its feet not webbedj as in the other birds of that genus, but the toes loofe, as in land fowls. There are four known fpecies of this bird. 1. A black one, fomc- what fmaller than the common fea fwallow, and having a forked tail. 2. A black kind with a greyifh White breaft and belly, and remarkable for the great length of its wiiv^s. 3. A grey kind, of the fize of a blackbird, with a very long tail, and very fhort wings. And 4. A brown one; with yellow fpots. The firft and the laft of thefe are com- mon on our own coafts ; the two others are defcribed by Aldrovand. They all feed on fifh. Rays Ornitholog. p, 270. Vid. fupra.

LASANON, a word ufed by different authors in very different fenfes ; fome applying it to the trivet commonly ufed in kitchens ; others to a clofe-ftool j and others, among whom are Hippocrates and the ahtient phyficiaiis, for a fort of chain, contrived for a woman in labour to fit in, as being fo made, that the weight of the child, when born, mould" help to draw away the fecundines.

LASER cyreniacum, in the materia medtca, a name fuppofed to be given by the antient Greeks to the gum we at this time call affa feciida. The word afja^ or, as it was origi- nally writteiij aja, was evidently formed on the lafer of the Greeks ; but there was alfo an aja mentioned by the old authors very different from this, being a fragrant and fweet fcented gum : and indeed, though Avifenna and Seraplon, and many of the authors of the middle ages, have deter- mined the lafer cyreniacum to be our ajfa fwtida, yet it is but a fuppofition, and that fo ill founded, that it will not bear a critical examination. The lafer of the antients was of a very agreeable and fragrant fmell, not of the ftinking one of our affa. Diofcorides attributes to it a very pleafing fmell, and exprefsly fays that it had nothing of the fmell of the leek or onion kind, for which our affa feciida 13 fo remarkable. Theophraftus quotes fome authors, much older than himfclf, to the credit of the fweet fmell of ftlphium of Cyrene, which is the plant whence the affa of their times was produced, and even the poet Ariftophanes calls if the fweet fcented gum; The mifunderftanding feems to have arifen about this gurii, from, the naming another thing by its name in after times. This fweet gum was evidently the lafer and afa, or affa, of the antient Greeks ; and the ftl- phium was the plant which produced it, This plant grew in Cyrene, and furnifhed it a long time, but in the days of Pliny it was in a manner loft. The people of Cyrene found it more profitable to feed their cattle upon the flphium, than to gather its gum. We hear of the great efteefri, in which the flefh of cattle fed on the ftlphium was amorig the an- tients, and have wondered at it, that fo ftinking a plant as that muft be, which yields affafectida, could give a good fla- vour to the flefh of cattle ; but we find by this account, that the ftlphimn was not a ftinking plant, and that the afa of thofe times was a very fweet and fragrant gum$ hot a ftinking one, like what we now call by that name. Pliny continues to tell us, that by the feeding cattle oh this plant, it was fo perfectly deftroyed, in a courfe of years, that there had been, of a long time, only one plant of it feen, and that reckoned fo great a curiofity, that it wa's fent as a prcfent to the emperor Nero.

When Cyrene no longer afforded the ftlphium^ it was fought for in other places, and the Romans had a gum of the fame name with that of the Cyrenian from Armenia, Media, and Perfia. This, however, was very different from the original medicine. This was of a difagrceable fmell, and though of a much hotter and more firey tafte than the Cy- renian, yet came very fhort of it in its virtues. The ori- ginal afa, or lafer, had the fmell of myrrh, but more mild and agreeable ; and the afa of fucceeding times had that of leeks or garlick, and thence was diftinguiflled by the name fcorado laj'erimi.

LASERPITIUM, laferivort, in botany, the name of a genus of the umbelliferous plants; the characters- of which are thefe. The' flower is of the rofaceous kind, confiding of fe- veral heart fafhioned petals difpofed in a circular order on a cup, which finally becomes a fruit compofed of two feeds, gibbofe on one fide, and ornamented with four large folia- ceous wings, which are fometimes curled, and fometimes plain.

The fpecies of laferpitimh enumerated by Mr. Tournefort are thefe. 1. The French lafertvorts, or laferpitium of Ma'r- feilles. 2. The laferpitium with very narrow ,arid oblong leaves. 3. The ftinking laferpitium with brittle angular leaves. 4, The felinum like laferpitium with curled feeds. 5. The broad leaved laferpitium with a narrow and hollow umbel. 6. The broad leaved not flnuated laferpitium. 7. The narrow leaved not fmuated laferpitium. 8. The dau- cus like laferpitium with vifcous feeds. 9. The laferpitium with broad lobatcd leaves, jo. The great round leaved Al- pine