Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/38

Rh L U L U and in 1880 it was 123,758. This last total includes 20,905 persons of colour and 23,156 foreigners, the larger proportion of the latter being Germans. It was in 1778 that Colonel George Rogers Clarke, on his way down the Ohio, left a company of settlers who took possession of Corn Island (no longer existing), near the Kentucky shore above the falls ; and in the following year the first rude cluster of cabins appeared on the site of the present city. An Act of the Virginian legislature in 1780 gave the little settlement the rank of a town, and called it Louisville in honour of Louis XVI. of France, then assisting the American colonies in their struggle for independence. The rank of city was conferred by the Kentucky legislature in 1828. LOULE, an old town of Portugal, in the district of Faro and province of Algarve, is beautifully situated in an inland hilly district about 5 miles to the north-west of the port of Faro. It is surrounded by walls and towers dating from the Moorish period, and the principal church is large and fine. The special industry of the place is basket-making. The population in 1878 was 14,862. The neighbouring church of Nuestra Senhora da Pietade is a favourite resort of pilgrims. LOURDES, capital of a canton, and seat of the civil court of the arrondissement of Argeles, in the department of Hautes-Pyrendies, France, lies 12 miles by rail south- south-west of Tarbes, on the right bank of the Gave de Pau, and at the mouth of the valley of Argeles. It has grown up around what was originally a Roman castellum, and subsequently a feudal castle, picturesquely situated on the summit of a bare scarped rock. Near the town are marble quarries employing six hundred workpeople ; and forty slate quarries give occupation to two hundred and sixty more. The pastures of the highly picturesque neighbourhood support the race of milch cows which is most highly valued in south-western France. The present fame of Lourdes is entirely associated with the grotto of Massavielle, where the Virgin Mary is believed in the Catholic world to have revealed herself repeatedly to a peasant girl in 1858; the spot, which is resorted to by multitudes of pilgrims from all quarters of the world, is now marked by a large church above the grotto, consecrated in 1876 in presence of thirty-five cardinals and other high ecclesiastical dignitaries. There is a considerable trade in rosaries and other &quot; objets de piete,&quot; as well as in the wonder-working water of the fountain, for which a miraculous origin is claimed. Not far from the grotto of Massaviella are several other caves where prehistoric remains, going back to the Stone Age and the period of the reindeer, have been found. The population of Lourdea in 1876 was 5470. LOUSE, a term applied indiscriminately in its broad sense to all epizoic parasites on the bodies of other animals. From a more particular point of view, however, it is strictly applicable only to certain of these creatures that affect the bodies of mammals and birds. - The former may be con sidered as lice proper, the latter are commonly known as bird-lice (although a few of their number infest mammalia). Scientifically they are now generally separated into Anoplura and Mallophaga, although some authors would include all under the former term. In the article INSECTS it has been shown that modern ideas tend towards placing the Anoplura as degraded members of the order Ilemiptera, and Mallo- phaga as equally degraded Pseudo-Neuroptera, according to the different formation of the mouth parts. Both agree in having nothing that can be termed a metamorphosis ; they are active from the time of their exit from the egg to their death, gradually increasing in size, and undergoing several moults or changes of skin ; but it should be remembered that many insects of the hemimetabolic division would scarcely present any stronger indications of metamor phoses were it not for the usual outgrowth of wing 1 *, which are totally wanting in the lice. The true lice (or Anoplura} are found on the bodies of many mammalia, and, as is too well known, occasion by their presence intolerable irritation. The number of genera is few. Two species of Pediculus are found on the human body, and are known ordinarily as the head-louse (/*. capitis) and the body-louse (P. vestimenti) ; some appear to recognize a third (P. tabescentiuni), particularly affect ing persons suffering from disease, burrowing (at any rate when young) beneath the skin, and setting up what is termed &quot; phthiriasis &quot; in such a terrible form that the unhappy victims at length succumb to its attacks ; to this several historical personages both ancient and modern are said to have fallen victims, but it is open to very grave doubts whether this frightful condition of things was due to other than the attacks of myriads of the ordinary body- louse. P. capitis is found on the head, especially of children. The eggs, laid on the hairs, hatch in about eight days, and the lice are full grown in about a month. Such is the fecundity of lice that it is asserted by Leeuwenhoek that one female (probably of P. vestimenti) may in the course of eight weeks witness the birth of five thousand descendants. Want of cleanliness undoubtedly favours their multiplication in a high degree, but it is scarcely necessary here to allude to the idea once existing, and probably still held by the very ignorant, to the effect that they are directly engendered from dirt. The irritation is caused by the rostrum of the insect being inserted into the skin, from which the blood is rapidly pumped up. Attempts have been made to prove that the head-louse (and, in a smaller degree, the body-louse) is liable to slight variation in structure, and also in colour, according to the races of men infested. This was probably first enunciated by Pouchet in 1841, and the subject received more ex tended examination by Andrew Murray in a paper published in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1861 (vol. xxii. pp. 567-577), who apparently shows that some amount of variation does exist, but there is yet need for further investigation. That lice are considered bonnes bouches by certain uncivilized tribes is well known. It would be out of place to discuss here the possible interpre tation of the Biblical reference to &quot; lice &quot; (cf. Exodus viii. 16, 17). A third human louse is known as the crab-louse (Phthirius imbis} this disgusting creature is found amongst the hairs on other parts of the body, particularly those of the pubic region, but probably never on the head ; although its presence may generally be looked upon as indicating dissolute association, it should not be regarded as always resulting therefrom, as it may be accidentally acquired by the most innocent. The louse of monkeys is now generally considered as forming a separate genus (Pedicinus), but the greater part of those infesting domestic and wild quadrupeds are mostly grouped in the large genus Hsematopinus, and very rarely is the same species found on different kinds of animals ; one species is found on the seal, and even the walrus does not escape, a new species (H. trichechi) having been recently discovered affecting the axillae (and other parts where the skin is comparatively soft) of that animal. The bird-lice (or Mallophagd) are far more numerous in species, although the number of genera is comparatively small. With the exception of the genus Trichodectes, the various species of which are found on mammalia, all infest birds (as their English name implies). As the mouth parts of these creatures are not capable of being extended into a sucking tube, but are clearly mandibulate, it appears probable that they feed more particularly on the scurf of the skin and feathers ; nevertheless great irritation must be caused by their presence, for it is notorious that cage-birds, much infested, will peck themselves to such an extent as to cause death in their endeavours to get rid of the parasites. Several hundred species are already known. Sometimes