Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 2.djvu/181

 P A I

P A I

ufe to women in labour. It feems to have been called f'aomtes, from Paeon i a in Macedonia, where it was found.

PAGANELLUS, in ichthyology, the name of a fifh of the fea-gudgeon, or rock-fifh kind, called by authors gohus maxi- ma marinm fiavefcens. This name, however, which was given it by Rondeletius, is a very erroneous one, fince it is fmaller than the common kind, which it much refembles ; it,is alfo of a paler colour, and has a fine yellow line furround- in'e the ed^e of its firft back fin, and has but a flight furrow on its back whereas that has a much larger one. Its head alfo is fhorter, and its jaws more tumid ; and its belly fins more regularly connected into the fhape of a funnel. It is common in the Mediterranean and other feas, and is fre- quently brought to market at Rome, Venice, csV. IVillugh- bfs Hift- Pile, p- 207. See the article Goget.

PAGANIN'A, an Italian word ufed by fome authors to exprefs the firft excrements of children : thefe dried and reduced to power, are efteemed by fome a very great and powerful medicine againft epilepfics. It is to be taken in fmall dofes every day, for fome time.

PA GEL, in ichthyology-, a name given by the Spaniards to that fifh which authors in general call the erythriw;^ or ru- bettio, and fome the xatkus and pagrus it is properly a fpe- cies of the fparus, and u diftinguifhed by Artcdi from the reft of that genus, by the name of the fiber-eyed red bodied jpm us. See the article Sparus.

PAGOYUM, a word ufed by Paracelfus and his followers, to exprefs an imaginary being which prefides over, or is the oc- cafion of difeafes, whole caufes are lefs known, and which have been fuppofed to arile from inchaiument. Such is the doctrine of this ftrange writer, and on this fubject he has written a treatife called Pugeyus.

PAGRUS, in ichthyology, the name of a fea-fifh, known in Englifh by the name "of the fia-Vream, It is a coniideiably 1ar<re fifh, stowing fometimes to ten or twelve pounds weight. It is very broad in proportion to its length, and is alfo con- siderably thick ; its head is flatted at top, and at the bans of the gill fins, it has on each fide a large black fpot. Its gill- fins are lar^e and long, and the extremities of all its fins are hid, and as it were involved in fkin, which is a very lingular circumftance in regard to this fifh. The eyes are large, and their hairs white, and the mouth is frequently of a fine red ■within ; it has broad teeth in the forepart of its mouth, and rough tubercles in the place of teeth in the hinder. Its tail is forked, and it has one long back-fin ; the nerves, or rays of the anterior part of which are fharp and prickly, and thofe of the hinder part foft and fmooth to the touch. It is caught in confiderable plenty in the Mediterranean, and is common jn the markets of Italy. Some account it a very delicate fifh, but many think it eats too dry. See Tab. of Fifties, N. 58. Aldrovand de Pifc. 1. %. c. 7. Rmde.'ct. de Pifc. 1. 5. c. 15. p. 142. GV/wr de Pifc p. 173.

Page us is alio ufed by Joannes Cuba, and others, for the fifh com- monly called dentexj xhefynadon, and fynagrh of the Greeks. It is a fpecies of the fparus, and is accurately diftinguifhed by Artedi, by the name of the variegated f par w 9 with a fharp back, and with four large teeth. See Sparus.

Pagrus is alfo a name given by Paulusjovius, and fome other au- thors, to the fifh called erythrinus and rube/Ho, and by Appian, xathos. Jt is of the fparus kind, and is diftinguifhed by Artedi, by the name of the filver-eyedred bodied jja> us. SeePAGAL.

Pagrus indicus, a name by which fome authors have called the Eaft Indian fifh, more ufually known by the name of hama fuxatilis. Ray's Ichthyology, Append, p. i. See the article Br am a faxatilis.

VWN-d'abeileu a word ufed by fome to exprefs the yellow fub- ftance found concreted in lumps en the legs of bees, and fup- pofed by the generality of the world to be real wax Experiments made by Mr. Reaumur and otbers,havefufEciently proved that this fubftance is not wax, nor has it any of the pro- perties of wax ; but it alfo appears, that it is the matter out of which wax is finally made.

In tracing this fubftance up to its origin, we find that the bees collect: the farina of flowers, which when moulded by their feet into a lump, makes this matter. It is very pro- bable that they feed on this matter, and that after paflmg thro' certain changes in their bodies, it becomes wax. This ^was an opinion fo.old as the days of Pliny ; fome of the au- thors he quotes calling this fubftance m/ibrofa, or the food of thefe little deities ; but late obfervations overthrow this opinion, till it again got credit under the more accurate examinations made by Mr. Reaumur, on the ftructure and parts of the bee.

Swammerdam exploded this notion, from the orifice of the trunk of the bee being infinitely too fmall to give admiffion to this matter, the feveral particles of which always retained, in the lumps, their original form and fize ; and the opinion eftablifhed by this author, of the bees receiving nourishment only by its trunk, made it neceffary to fuppofe, that only honey, or the faccharine juices of vegetables, could be the food of this creature ; fince nothing Iblid could poflibly be received thro' that minute orifice : but Mr. Reaumur has iuf- peftetl even the exiftence of any fuch orifice, or any aper- ture at all-in the trunk, and has plainly proved, that the bee

has a real mouth, and that large enough to receive iblid food. 'I his mouth is iituated in the anterior part of the head, very near the origin of the trunk, and by means of this, the yel- low matter collected on the thighs may be eafily received into the body, and thence evacuated again in form of wax; all the parts of its compofition having been received as nourifh- rnent by the animal, except this indiftbluble fubftance. The poffibility of the bees feeding on this matter, is not, how- ever, all the argument we have in favour of this opinion ; for it is evidently feen on diflecting them, that they really do feed on it, their ftomachs being ufually found filled with it, and that in its proper form, the figures of the globules not being deffroyed.

1 his is a food not only eaten occafionally by the bees, but neceflar.y to their fupport, and is found ftored up 111 their hives againft a bad feafon. The combs have their dif- ferent cells made for different purpofes ; and befide that, fome aredeftinedfor receiving honey, and fome for the young worms which are hereafter to become bees ; there are fome alfo which ferve to contain this yellow matter, collected on the legs of thefe infects. In fine weather, when more of this matter is collected than is eaten for immediate nourifhment, the bees fcrape off the lumps of it from their legs into fome of the holes, or cells of the combs, where others following their example, there finally become large referves of it 5 which are eaten on fuch days as they cannot go out in fearch of more. When one bee has depouted her load of this matter in a cell, and is flown out to work again, another always enters im- mediately head foremoft into the cell, and flats and prefles down the matter into the bottom of the cell ; others after- wards depofit more of it, and others ftill repeat the work of preinng it down; and as they prefs it, they break and bruife it with their teeth, arid pour in fome of their honey upon it, and by this means they finally compleat the magazine of food, by rendering the mixt mafs in condition to keep, and to be taken out with great eafe upon occafion. It is evident fj-om all this, that the yellow matter collected on the thighs of bees, and ufually fuppofed to be wax, is really a fubftance which ferves for the food of the bees, and that after it has been di- verted- of the nutritious matter it contained, it is again thrown out of the body in form of wax. It might be naturally fup- pofed from this, that the wax was an excrement voided by way of farces thro* the anus ; but this is by no means the cafe, what is voided by that pafTage is true fiscal matter, of no farther ufe or fervice to the animal ; and the wax in its per- fect form is voided out of the body by the fame paffiige by which it was taken in while in its rough ft ate, that is, by the mouth ; and is, on being thus voided, immediately worked into cells, £srV. by the teeth of the animal. This was a dif- covery in thececonomy of this little animal referved for that excellent naturalift Reaumur.

Swammerdam, who had ftudicd the creature's operations very accurately, had been in no condition to obfbrve this particu- lar, for want of the advantage of glafs hives; and Maraldi, tho' he had thefe, yet had them fo ill conftrudted, that they could not give him an opportunity of feeing with fufficient accuracy.

The teeth of the bee, tho' the principal part concerned in the working the wax, are not, however, the only part ; the tongue of the creature is very greatly affiftant on the occa- fion : it is darted witii incredible velocity on the feveral part r of the work, and feems to do great matters toward the form- ing it. Befide this, the bee has a method of rendering the wax fit for receiving any form, in a manner we do not know any thing of. In order to manage this fubftance, we obliged to heat it, and it fo becomes ductile; kit this is not in the power of the bee, and muft be of very deftructivecon- fequence to the whole if it was, fince the circumjacent parts muft be heated, as well as that on which it was at work, and then they would burft with the load of honey they contain, or break under the weight of the bees at work on them : as this would be adeftructive method, nature has given the animals an- other ; flie has furnifbed them with a liquid, with which, when the wax is properly wetted, it becomes as foft as a gum, and as ductile as the filaments of filk when fpun from the ca- terpillar.

The bee collects this yellow matter, which is the prime con- ftituent of the wax, from whatever flowers happen to be moft plentiful about the hives ; and tho' generally yellow, as the farina of moft plants is fo, yet it is fometimes feen in red, or green lumps on their thighs; but whatever be its na- tural colour, it is always turned yellow before it is difcharged from the body of the animal ; and when the ftomach of any of them is diflected, after the feeding on a red fubftance Col- lected from flowers, the farina of which is of that colour, the change is found to be made as to colour in this part, for the whole is found there in form of a yellow jelly. This matter, if taken out of the ftomachs of feveral bees and dry- ed, is found to be of a difagreeable fmell, like fermented mat- ter, and of a pungency fome what refemhling that of the vo- latile felts. Mr. Reaumur was hence induced to try the ef- fect of the volatile falts in turning the bees bread, or rough wax, into perfect wax by digeftions, continued a long time, but in vain. If we may give credit, however,,, to the Ger- man