Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/141

 K N O K N O 121) second strand round the rope, through the bight of the first, and through its own bight ; the third through all three bights. Haul the ends taut. See Nares, Seamanship, 4th ed., 1868; Dana, Seaman s Manual, 9th ed., 1863 ; A. H. Alston, Sca.manship, Portsmouth, 1871 ; Kipping, Masting and liigying, 9th ed., 1864; Yachts and Yachting, by &quot; VanJerdecken &quot; (William Cooper), 1873 ; Book of Knots, by &quot;Tom Bowling&quot; (J. Bonwiek), 1866. KXOT, a Limicolino bird very abundant at certain seasons on the shores of Britain and many countries of the northern hemisphere. Camden in the edition of his Britannia published in 1607 (p. 408) inserted a passage not found in the earlier issues of that work, connecting the name with that of King Canute, and this nccount of its origin has been usually received. But no other evidence in its favour is forthcoming, and Camden s statement is merely the expression of an opinion, 1 so that there is perhaps ground for believing him to have been mistaken, and that the clue afforded by Sir Thomas Browne, who (circa 1672) wrote the name &quot; Gnatts or Knots,&quot; may be the true one. 2 Still the statement was so determinedly repeated by successive authors that Linnaeus followed them in calling the species Tringa canutus, and so it remains with nearly all modern ornithologists. 3 Rather larger than a Snipe, but with a short, Plover-like bill and legs, the Knot visits the coasts of some parts of Europe, Asia, and North America at times in vast flocks; and, though in temperate climates a good many remain throughout the winter, these are nothing in proportion to those that arrive towards the end of spring, in England generally about the 15th of May, and after staying a few days pass northward to their summer quarters, while early in autumn the young of the year throng to the same places in still greater numbers, being followed a little later by their parents. In winter the plumage is ashy-grey above (save the rump, which is white) and white beneath. In summer the feathers of the back are black, broadly margined with light orange-red, mixed with white, those of the rump white, more or less tinged with red, and the lower parts are of a nearly uni form deep bay or chestnut. The birds which winter in temperate climates seldom attain the brilliancy of colour exhibited by those which arrive from the south ; the luxuriance generated by the heat of a tropical sun seems needed to develop the full richness of hue. The young when they come from their birthplace are clothed in ashy-grey above, each feather banded with dull black and ochreous, while the breast is more or less deeply tinged with warm buff. Much curiosity has long existed among zoologists as to the egg of the Knot, of which not a single identified or authenticated specimen is known to exist in collections. Yet more than sixty years ago the species was found breeding abundantly on the North Georgian (now commonly called the Parry) Islands by Parry s memorable expedition, as well as soon after on Melville Peninsula by Captain Lyons, and again during the recent voyage of Sir 1 His words are simply &quot;Knotts, i. Canuti aucs, vt opinor e Dania enim aduolare creduntur.&quot; In the margin the name is spelt &quot; Cnotts,&quot; and he possibly thought it had to do with a well-known story of that king. Knots undoubtedly frequent the sea-shore, where Canute is said on one occasion to have taken up his station, but they generally retreat, and that nimbly, before the advancing surf, which he is said in the story not to have done. 2 In this connexion we may compare the French maringouin, ordi narily a gnat or mosquito, but also, among the French Creoles of America, a small shore-bird, either a Tringa or an sEgialitis, accord ing to Deseourtilz ( Voyage, ii. p. 249). See also Littre s Dictionnaire sub vocc. 3 There are few of the Limicohv-, to which group the Knot belongs, that present greater changes of plumage according to age or season, and hence before these phases were understood the species became encumbered with many synonyms, as Tringa cinerea, ferruyinea, gnsea, islandica, n&via, and so forth. The confusion thus caused was mainly cleared away by Montagu and Temminck. George Nares on the northern coast of Grinnell Land and the shores of Smith Sound, where Major Feilden obtained examples of the newly -hatched young (Ibis, 1877, p. 407), and observed that the parents fed largely on the buds of Saxifraga oppositifolia. These are the only localities in which this species is known to breed, for on none of the arctic lands lying to the north of Europe or Asia has it been unquestionably observed. 4 In winter its wanderings are very extensive, as it is recorded from Surinam, Brazil, Walvisch Bay in South Africa, China, Queensland, and New Zealand. Formerly this species was extensively netted in England, and the birds fattened for the table, where they were esteemed a great delicacy, as witness the entries in the Northumberland and Le Strange Household Books ; and the British Museum contains an old treatise on the subject &quot;The maner of kepyng of knotts, after Sir William Askew and my Lady, given to my Lord Darcy, 25 Hen. VIII.&quot; (MSS. Sloane, 1592, 8 cat. 663). (A. K) KNOWLES, JAMES SHERIDAN (1784-1862), dramatic author, was born at Cork, 21st May 1784. His father was the lexicographer James Knowles, cousin-german of Ptichard Brinsley Sheridan. Not long after the removal of the family to London in 1793, young Knowles began his dramatic career by composing a play which was performed by himself and his juvenile companions. At the age of fourteen he published a ballad entitled The Welsh Harper, which was set to music and obtained great popularity ; and about the same time his precocious talents secured him the friendship of Hazlitt, through whom he also formed an intimacy with Lamb and Coleridge, Of his early career little else is known except that for some time he served in the Wilts and afterwards in the Tower Hamlets militia, and that he left the latter corps to become pupil of Dr Willan the physician, through whom he was appointed vaccinator to the Jennerian Society. Although, however, he was generously offered by Dr Willan a share in his practice, he resolved to forsake medicine for the stage, making his debut at the Crow Theatre, Dublin. At Wexford he in October 1809 married Maria Charteris, an actress from the Edinburgh Theatre. About this time he wrote Leo, which was played at Waterford with great success by Edmund Kean; but, although another piece, Brian Boroihme, which he wrote for the Belfast Theatre also drew crowded houses, his labours as an actor and author secured him so little pecuniary return that he found it advisable to become assistant to his father at the Belfast Academical Institution. In 1817 he removed from Belfast to Glasgow, where, besides conducting a flourishing school, he continued his dramatic authorship. His first important dramatic success was Cains Gracchus, produced at Belfast in 1815 ; and by Virginius, written for Edmund Kean, and first performed in 1820, he obtained a very high place among the dramatic authors of the century. Besides William Tell, in which Macready performed one of his most successful parts, the other principal plays of Knowles are The Hunchback, Love, and The Wife. In some of his own pieces he acted with a just appreciation of the character and with considerable vigour and fire, but he failed in the power of personation. He achieved some suc cess, however, as a lecturer on elocution. In his later years he forsook the stage for the pulpit, and as a Baptist preacher attracted large audiences at Exeter Hall nnd else where, while he also entered the field of polemical theology, publishing two works, the Hock of Rome, and the Idol Demolished ly its otat Priests, in both of which he combated the special doctrines of the Romish Church. Knowles was for some years in the receipt of an annual 4 The Tringa canutus of Payer s expedition seems more likely to have been T. maritima, which species is not named among the birds of Franz Josef Land, though it can hardly fail to orcur there. XIV 17