Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 2.djvu/504

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fcndarlger the melting of the delicate parts of the work to be felderedi and if well made, this fiver-folder will lie even upon the ordinary kind itfelf; and fo fill up thofe little ca-

• vities, that may chance to be left in the firft operation, which is not eafily done without a folder more eafily fuftble than the firft made ufe of.*-[ b Woiks Abridged, Vol.I. p. 135.]

•SOLDIDO, a name given to the tamiato. See Tamoato.

SOLDIER (Cycl.)— The profits attending the profefhon of a foldier, among the Romans, were very confiderable. I. Booty and plunder, with which they frequently returned home loaded, efpecially after taking any cities or towns ; for thefe were generally given up to be plundered. 2. The fubducd countries, which were often divided among the Jobbers. 3. Their pay. 4. Cloaths. 5. Provifions. 6. Farms and lioufes in provinces were alfo given them. 7. Many 'privi- leges and immunities, as that none could touch his goods in° his abfence in the camp. 8. Legacies, which the em- perors left to be diftributed among them. 9. Donatives. 10. Promotions to military honours lay open to every brave man, though of the meaneft birth. 'P'ttifc. in voc.

SOLEiE, among the Romans, were a kind of fandals or flippers, which covered only the fole of the feet, and were bound on with thongs of leather ; inftead of which the wo- men, and effeminate perfons of the other fex, tied them on with purple-coloured ribbands, or fuch as were varioufly adorned with gold and filver. P'ttifc. in voc.

SOLEN, the razor-fijh, in natural hiffory, the name of a genus of fliell -fifh, the characters of which are thefe. They have bivalve fhells with an oblong body, and are open at both ends. They are ufually itrait, but in fome fpecies crooked. It had its name folen from the Greek, in which language that word expreffes a pipe or tube ; this fifh, when the fhells are clofed, very aptly refcmbling a tube. The Latin writers have called it unguis, from its refemblance in colour and confiftence to the human nail. The common people, in many parts of France, call it couielier, and in Italy it is commonly called cannolhbio. Rondeletius obferves that there are, among the folens of thi fame fpecies, males and females, which are eafily diftin- guifhable from one another; and that the females are larger, have no variegations on the fhells, and are much better tatted than the males. Rumphius has defcribed a very re- markable fpecies of folen, which always remains buried in fand, and which is not properly a bivalve, confifting only of one piece, though of the fhape of the folen ; he calls this folen arenarius. Lifter has called the crooked fpecies felines

■ curvi, and fome call them the fcymitar folens.

We have feveral fpecies of the If rait folens, though but few of the crooked ones. Of the firft kind are, 1. the common white folen. 2. The red American' folen. 3. The variegated folen. 4. The zoned folen, called the onyx-Jbell. 5. The brown folen. 6. The large duiky folen. 7. The unguis, properly fo called. This exactly, in texture and appearance, refembles the human nail. 8. The finger folen, called daclylus by the antients. 9. The flute or pipe folen. jo. The reed folen, 11. The long brown folen with a thick black mufcle at the cardo. See Tab. of Shells, N° 23. Of the crooked folens the following two are the only known fpecies. i.The fcymitzr folen. 2. The folen arenarius, al- ways found "in fand.

The fhell of this fifh is compofed of two pieces, which are the two halves of a hollow cylinder with an elliptic bafe, divided in a longitudinal direction. Thefe two pieces are fattened together near one end by a ligament, like that which joins the fhells of the mufcle or the oifter. From the place where this ligament is fixed, quite to the other end of the fhell, there is a membrane fattened to each edge of the fhells, and this encreafes in breadth in proportion to its dittance from tHe place of its origin ; fo that viewed externally, it forms a fort of ifofceles triangle, the bafe of which has about two lines in breadth. The colour and confiftence of this membrane give it very much the appear- ance of a piece of parchment; it has a confiderable fpring in it, and ferves on occafion to open, or draw together the two fides of the fhell. There is another membrane, of the fame kind with this,

. fattened to the other fide of the fifh, there adhering to each fhell, but this is of an equal breadth all the way down : this ferves alfo to Ihut or open the edges of the fhell. When the folen flints its fhell, it folds itfelf into feveral longitudinal wrinkles, which open again when the fides of the fhells feparate.

Hence it is to be obferved, that though this fliell has a power of opening and {hutting, yet the body of the fifh is always fecured, and is no more expofed to fight at one time than at another, and there is no part where the fifh can be feen but at the ends.

This fifh lives in the fand on the fea-fhore, where it buries itfelf often a foot and a half, or two feet deep ; the length of the fhell is, at this time, nearly in a vertical pofition, and the fifh has a power of raifing itfelf at pieafure up to the furface, and finking down again, while the fhell remains all the time buried in its place. Almoft .all other animals have _ an horizontal motion, and the fhell-iifh of the lea crawl

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along ■•upon" its bottom under water, "as the common land animals do on dry ground ; but this creature's progreflive motion is only vertical, and that confined to a very fihall compafs, all that it is able to do for itfelf, being only to raife itfelf higher or lower, and fink deeper or rife higher in the fand, within the narrow compafs of about two feet at the utmoft, as the going beyond that mutt occafion its deftrudii- on. Where thefe fhell-iifh are buried in the fand, there is a hole reaching from every one of them to the furface, by means of which they have a free communication with the Water: thefe holes generally are placed in great numbers near one another, and are eafily dittinguifhed at a time when the tide has left the fhore uncovered. They are not round but oblong, and fome what refemble the key-hole of a lock' but that they have a roundnefs at each end, whereas that ufually is rounded only at one. When the winds are vio- lent, they blow the fand about, and flop up thefe holes otherwife, whenever there are any of thefe fifh, they are ea- fily difcovered. When the fea is down, thefe fifh ufually run deep into the fand, and to bring them up, the common cuftom is to throw a little fait into the holes, on which the fifh raifes itfelf, and in a few minutes appears at the mouth of its hole. When half the fliell is difcovered, the fifher- man has nothing more to do than to take hold of it with his fingers and draw it out, but he mutt be cautious not to lofe the occafion ; for the creature does not continue a mo- ment in that ftate, and if by any means the fifherman has touched it, and let it flip away, it is gone for ever, for it will not be decoyed again out of its hole by fait ; fo that there is then no way of getting it but by digging under it, and throwing it up with the fand. This fitti has two pipes, each compofed of four or fiv« rings or portions of a hollow cylinder, of unequal lengths, joined one to another, and the places where they join are marked by a number of fine ftreaks or rays. Now the reafon why the fait makes thefe creatures come up out of their holes, is, that it gives them violent pain, and even corrodes thefe pipes : this is fome- what ftrange, as the creature is nourifhed by means of fait water; but it is very evident, in that if a little fait' be ffrewed upon thefe pipes in a fifh taken out of its habitation, it will corrode the joinings of the rings, and often make one or more joints drop of?: the creature, to avoid this mifchief, arifes out of its hole, and throws 6fF the fait, and then retires back again. The ufe of thefe pipes to the ani- mal, is the fame with that of many other pipes of a like kind in other fhell-fifh, they all ferve to take in water; they are only a continuation of the outer membrane of the fifh, and ferve indifferently for the taking in and throwing out the water, one receiving, and the other difcharging it, and either arifwering equally well to their purpofe. When one of thefe fifh is taken out of its hole, and laid upon the fand, if any thing touches it, it immediately gets in order for its progreflive motion. It throws out a long cy- lindric part, of half the length of the fhell, and of the fhape of a clapper of a bell ; this is fufpended to the middle of the animal by a ligament, but in all other parts it is loofe ; this ferves as a leg to the creature : as it lies upon the fand, it extends this about an inch from the end of the fhell, and changes its cylindric figure to a flat one, which terminates in a point, flat and {harp at the edges; with this it opens its paflage into the fand. When- the opening is made, it ex- tends this part ftill farther, and buries it deeper, and after this bends it back again in fuch a manner, that its point turns up towards the fhell ; thus it gives this pait a figure of a hook, and by this hook it draws its whole body and fhell down. In this attempt it brings the edges of the fliells every where clofe together, and inJJead of lying flat upon the fand, it now by degrees gets into a vertical pofition, and then there remains nothing to do, but to draw it deeper into the land. To effecvt this, it now again extends its leg, which it eafily pafTes into the fand in its flatted fhape, and when it has thus pierced to its utmoft length, the creature inflates, and extends it by degrees to the Tize of the fhell, and to a round or cylindric figure; the confequence of which is, that there is now a hole made of the fhape of the fhell, and equal to its diameter, into which it can eafily fink : to facilitate this, however, the creature fwells out the extremity of the leg into a fort of button, which hold- ing faft in its place, nothing more is neceflary than to contract ihe reft of the leg, in order to pull down the fhell after it. This operation is repeated as often as is neceflary, and the creature, at every movement of this kind, getting down half the length of its fhell, or thereabouts, is very foon plunged as deep as its occafions require. When it has occafion to afcend out of its hole, the fame leg ferves for that purpofe; nothing more being required, than the putting out the end of the leg, fwelling it, and thus tlmifting itfelf up to the length of that leg; then retracing it into the fliell again, and thrufting out, and inflating its end for a fecond movement of the fame kind. Thefe mo- tions may be all perceived in the creature when out of the fand, particularly that by which it buries itfelf; for if held up in the ringers, it thrufts out the leji, and performs all the motions as if in the fand, making a friiitlefs attempt to 1 fave