Page:EB1911 - Volume 13.djvu/723

 In 1812 Dikhuth, horn-player in the orchestra of the grand-duke of Baden at Mannheim, constructed a horn in which a slide on the principle of that of the trombone was intended to replace hand-stopping and to lower the pitch at will a semitone.

The most felicitous, far-reaching and important of all improvements was the invention of (q.v.), pistons or cylinders (the principle of which has already been explained), by Heinrich Stölzel, who applied them first of all to the horn, the trumpet and the trombone, thus endowing the brass wind with a chromatic compass obtained with perfect ease throughout the compass. The inherent defect of valve instruments already explained, which causes faulty intonation needing correction when the pistons are used in combination, has now been practically overcome. The numerous attempts to solve the difficulty, made with varying success by makers of brass instruments, are described under , and.

HORNBEAM (Carpinus betulus), a member of a small genus of trees of the natural order Corylaceae. The Latin name Carpinus has been thought to be derived from the Celtic car, wood, and pin or pen, head, the wood of hornbeams having been used for yokes of cattle (see Loudon, Ency. of Pl. p. 792, new ed. 1855, and Littré, Dict. ii. 556). The common hornbeam, or yoke-elm, Carpinus betulus (Ger. Hornbaum and Hornbuche, Fr. charme), is indigenous in the temperate parts of western Asia and of Asia Minor, and in Europe, where it ranges as high as 55° and 56° N. lat. It is common in woods and hedges in parts of Wales and of the south of England. The trunk is usually flattened, and twisted as though composed of several stems united; the bark is smooth and light grey; and the leaves are in two rows, 2 to 3 in. long, elliptic-ovate, doubly toothed, pointed, numerously ribbed, hairy below and opaque, and not glossy as in the beech, have short stalks and when young are plaited. The stipules of the leaves act as protecting scale-leaves in the winter-bud and fall when the bud opens in spring. The flowers appear with the leaves in April and May. The male catkins are about 1 in. long, and have pale-yellow anthers, bearing tufts of hairs at the apex; the female attain a length in the fruiting stage of 2 to 4 in., with bracts 1 to 1 in. long. The green and angular fruit or “nut” ripens in October; it is about in. in length, is in shape like a small chestnut, and is enclosed in leafy, 3-lobed bracts. The hornbeam thrives well on stiff, clayey, moist soils, into which its roots penetrate deeply; on chalk or gravel it does not flourish. Raised from seed it may become a tree 40 to as much as 70 ft. in height, greatly resembling the beech, except in its rounder and closer head. It is, however, rarely grown as a timber-tree, its chief employment being for hedges. “In the single row,” says Evelyn (Sylva, p. 29, 1664), “it makes the noblest and the stateliest hedges for long Walks in Gardens or Parks, of any Tree whatsoever whose leaves are deciduous.” As it bears clipping well, it was formerly much used in geometric gardening. The branches should not be lopped in spring, on account of their tendency to bleed at that season. The wood of the hornbeam is white and close-grained, and polishes ill, is of considerable tenacity and little flexibility, and is extremely tough and hard to work—whence, according to Gerard, the name of the tree. It has been found to lose about 8% of its weight by drying. As a fuel it is excellent; and its charcoal is much esteemed for making gunpowder. The inner part of the bark of the hornbeam is stated by Linnaeus to afford a yellow dye. In France the leaves serve as fodder. The tree is a favourite with hares and rabbits, and the seedlings are apt to be destroyed by mice. Pliny (Nat. Hist. xxvi. 26), who describes its wood as red and easily split, classes the hornbeam with maples.

The American hornbeam, blue or water beech, is Carpinus americana (also known as C. caroliniana); the common hop-hornbeam, a native of the south of Europe, is a member of a closely allied genus, Ostrya vulgaris, the allied American species, O. virginiana, is also known as ironwood from its very hard, tight, close-grained wood.

HORNBILL, the English name long generally given to all the birds of the family Bucerotidae of modern ornithologists, from the extraordinary horn-like excrescence (epithema) developed on the bill of most of the species, though to which of them it was first applied seems doubtful. Among classical authors Pliny had heard of such animals, and mentions them (Hist. Nat. lib. x. cap. lxx.) under the name of Tragopan; but he deemed their existence fabulous, comparing them with Pegasi and Gryphones—in the words of Holland, his translator (vol. i. p. 296)—“I thinke the same of the Tragopanades, which many men affirme to bee greater than the Ægle; having crooked hornes like a Ram on either side of the head, of the colour of yron, and the head onely red.” Yet this is but an exaggerated description of some of the species with which doubtless his informants had an imperfect acquaintance. Medieval writers found Pliny’s bird to be no fable, for specimens of the beak of one species or another seem occasionally to have been brought to Europe, where they were preserved in the cabinets of the curious, and thus Aldrovandus was able to describe pretty fairly and to figure (Ornithologia, lib. xii. cap. xx. tab. x. fig. 7) one of them under the name of “Rhinoceros Avis,” though the rest of the bird was wholly unknown to him. When the exploration of the East Indies had extended farther, more examples reached Europe, and the “Corvus Indicus cornutus” of Bontius became fully recognized by Willughby and Ray, under the title of the “Horned Indian Raven or Topau called the Rhinocerot Bird.” Since the time of those excellent ornithologists our knowledge of the hornbills has been steadily increasing, but up to the third quarter of the 19th century there was a great lack of precise information, and the publication of D. G. Elliot’s “Monograph of the Bucerotidae,” then supplied a great want. He divides the family into two sections, the Bucerotinae and the Bucorvinae. The former group contains most of the species, which are divided into many genera. Of these, the most remarkable is Rhinoplax, which seems properly to contain but one species, the Buceros vigil, B. scutatus or B. geleatus of authors, commonly known as the helmet-hornbill, a native of Sumatra and Borneo. This is easily distinguished by having the front of its nearly vertical and slightly convex epithema composed of a solid mass of horn instead of a thin coating of the light