Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 2.djvu/592

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brought together, thefe ends are to be gently tied over the roll, firft in a fingle, and then in a flip knot. If there are three of thefe threads, you are to tie the middle one firft, and afterwards the reft in the fame manner. On the firft days after the operation of the future is performed, in what- ever method that he done, the bandage and comprefs are to be gently removed, and the ftate of the wound examined : if every thing now looks well, and there is little or no pain, or inflammation, the futures are to be left alone for fix or feven days, or longer, and the wound dreffed till there appears a ftric*. union in the lips. If, in any of thefe exa- minations, the flitches of the future arc feen to be too loofc, they muft be tightened, if too tight, loofened. When the lips of the wound appear to be inlarged, or bruifed, they muft be dreffed with a digeftive ointment, the continuance of which ufually foon takes off thofe fymptoms ; but if the wound be attended with great inflammation and a fever, the ftitches muft be loofened, and the patient blooded, and kept on a thin diet : if this method remove the fymptoms, the ftitches muft be tighted again, and the wound. dreffed and managed as before ; but if this method proves fruitlefs, and the fymptoms continue and increafe, the ftitches muft then be cut, and the wound treated as if there were a lofs of fubftance.

If the wound heals by the affiftance of the future, the threads of it are to be cut with fciffors, near the knots, and the lower lip of the wound to be fufpended with one hand, while the threads are gently drawn out with the other. The ' punctures that are left from them will eafily heal, by in- jecting the arquebufade water, or fpirit of wine, or lime- water, and laying on compreffes dipt in the fame liquors. Heiffer-'s Surgery, p. 39. SUVERNA guirecem, in natural hiftory, a name given by the people of the Eaft-Indies to a kind of foflilc, which they efteem greatly for certain imaginary virtues. It is a kind of fine and gloffy foliaceous talc. Their manner of pre- paring it is this: they beat it to pieces m a mortar, and then boil, or rather fry it a long time in butter, and after- wards ftraining off the butter, they eat it to make them fat. SWALLOW, in ornithology. See Hirundo. Swallow-//. See Hirundo pifris.

Swallow-^, in natural hiftory, the name of the chelldoni- us, a fly very remarkable for its fwift and long flight. See Chelidonius and the next article. SwALLQW-y?fl?7£, chelidanius lapis, in natural hiftory, the name of a ftone which Pliny, and many other authors affirm to be found in the ftomachs of young f.vallows. It is always defcribed to be fmall, roundifh, convex on the outfide, and concave on the other, and of a brownifh, yellowifh, or blackifh colour : this, and the figures given of it, plainly mew that it is either a fmall fpecies of the lycodontes, or bufonitse, or elfc a detached piece of one of the compound ichthyperia, or, as they are vulgarly called, fsliquaflra. Thefe are the bony palates of certain fpecies of fiih, and are compofed of feveral parts, the middle ones longifh, and rcfembling the pods of a lupine, and thofe toward the edges roundifh and fmall, convex on the outfide, and concave within, but more hollowed, and confequently thinner than the lycodontes, to which otherwife they are very like in fhape. The "whole palates, or the long parts, when loofe, are called fillquajira by authors ; but the round pieces have been ufu- ally confounded with the bufonitre, and miftaken for them, whenever they have been found loofe. Thefe, as they are thinner and hollower than the lycodontes, agree better than any fpecies of thofe bodies with the figures and defcriptions of the chclidonii in the more accurate writers, who make them fmall, thin, and tender; but the generality confound thefe fragments of palates, as well under the name of cbe- lidonii) as of the bufonita;, never guefling at their true ori- gin. They are rarely larger than the eighth of an inch in diameter. The common report is, that when two of thefe jhnes are found in the ftomach of one fwallow, the one is more yellow, the other more red ; but that when there is only one, it poffeffes the virtues of both. De Boot tells us, that he cut up feveral young fzua/lnvs, but never found any fuch Hones in them ; and indeed it is no wonder, fince they are not to be looked for there, but in the jaws of the wolf- hfh, or in the palates of fome of the lefs known kinds. SwALL0W-w<?rr. See the articles Asclepius and Vince-

TOXICUM.

Difficulty of SWALLOWING, in infants. See the article Infant.

SWAN, cyguus, in zoology. See the article Cyonus. By the law of England, to take fwatis eggs is penal, in the fame manner as taking hawk J s eggs, that is, by fine and im- prifonment. See Hawk..

Sw AH-fhell. See the article Cigne.

SWARDY, in agriculture, a term ufed by the farmers for a foil well covered with grafs. Plot's Oxfoidfh. p. 247.

SWARM. The fignal of the going out of a fwarm from

a hive is fometimes only a humming noife made by one

fingle bee, but that a very particularly acute, and clear

found; tJiis feems to be the voice of the. new queen, oj

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female bee, calling together the fwarm that Is to follow her out, and animating them with a fort of martial mulic for the great adventure they are going to engage in. Some who have pretended to be extremely well verfed in the language of bees, as Butler, and others, fay, that this is a voice of intreaty, by which the young queen begs permiffion of the old queen, or parent of the hive, to take out a fwarm with her to fome other place : they fay this noife of intreaty ufually Ms about two days, and that at the end of that time, if the parent grants the requeft, fhe is heard to anfwer with a louder and clearer voice of the fame kind. Thefe noifes are not to be heard, unlefs the car be applied clofe to the place ; and they fay, that when this laft found is made, the new fwarm may be expected certainly to go out the next day, if the weather be proper. But he feems to have taken great pains to diftinguifh thefe founds ; he gives all the modulations of the voice of the young female, and every note that fhe runs into; and ob- ferves, that all thefe are notes of fupplication, and that the founds iffued by the parent, or reigning queen of the hive, have an air of majefty, and are greatly 'different ; and adds) that if the young female attempts to make the founds of the reigning bee, it is looked upon as a rebellion in the hive : and he pretends to be acquainted with the proceedings againft her in thefe cafes ; he fays fhe lofes her head, arid that feveral of the bees that followed her are treated in the fame manner for having been feduced to a rebellion. Reau- mur's Hift. Infedt. Vol. 10. p. 290.

All thefe different modulations of founds, made by the bees, are the effect of the different vibrations of their wings in the air. It has been fuppofed by Swammerdam, that" the air illuing from the ftigmata of the body was very inftrumental to the making of this found ; but this is proved to be an er- roneous conjecture, by the eafy experiment of cutting off a bee's wings, which always renders the creature perfeflly mute ; though this could not be the cafe, if the voice pro- ceeded from other parts. It is evident, therefore, that all the founds of the bee are made by the ftriking of its win~s againft the air ; and it feems very eafy to imagine, that when the motion of the wings can make a found, the more quick or flow motion of them can modulate it in a different man- ner, and the moving them in feveral different directions, may alfo add greatly to the variety.

The hours of going out of fwarms are always between eleven in the morning, and three in the afternoon: the air is at this time very hot, and the fun often mines brightly on the furface of the hive ; the effea of this, in cauffng them to go out, is eafily conceived. The few who are neareft the mouth of the hive, and are ready to follow their queen, foon find that this is a pleafant feafon for their expedition, and the numbers of others, which remained irrefolute in th» inner parts of the hive, now find the natural heat of the place increafed to fo great a degree by the action of the external warmth, that it is very natural for them to re- folve at once to depart with thofe which are going off, in order to find a place where they may be more at eafe, or lefs crowded and heated in their habitation. People, who have the care of bees, fliould attend to their [warming, or going out on thefe occafions ; and if they are not at leifure to watch them in the hours before mentioned, fhould defend the hives, during that part of the day, from the heat of the fun, that they may not go off and be loif. Immediately before the going out of a fwarin there is heard a prodigious humming in the hive, much greater than what is heard at any other hive, and immediately after this, the openings of the hive are crowded with bees, in a violent hurry to get out ; thofe which firft come out immediately take flight, and if the female, or queen, be among thefe, vatt numbers immediately follow, and the air is feen as full of them, as it is of flakes of fnow in a winter ftorm ; and, in fine, it is not a minute before all the bees, that are to make the new fwarm, are out of the' hive: when the body is thus joined, they rife and fall in the air, and feem very curious in choofing a place where to fix themfelves. It does not appear that the female bee choofes the place for them, but they all feem to be afliftant in it ; and as foon as they have fixed upon a proper branch of a tree, or the like, they all fly towards it, and begin to form a duffer in one part of it. The female does not place herfelf at the head of this clufter, but fits on the branch near it, to fee how flie approves the management ; as foon as the clufter is of a pro- per fize, fhe adds herfelf to it, and from that inftant it thickens in a furprifing manner, all trying firft to fix them- felves to the reft, fo that in a quarter of an hour they ar« all collefled together into a vaft mafs, hanging to one an- other by the legs. In this condition they remain abfolutely quiet, though expofed to the open air, and there are no more of them feen flying loofe about, than there are about the hives in a fummer's day. Reaumur's Hift. Inf. Vol. 10. P- 293-.

The hives of bees are commonly placed in gardens, that the bees may have fome flowers at leaft in their own neigh- bourhood, and not be compelled to go fat in fearch of food ; and the Jwarmi from thefe hives always fucceed beft, when

there