Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/541

Rh I G N I I 499 consisting chiefly of a great number of dead leaves ingeniously applied together so that the plane of each is mostly vertical. In the midst of the mass is wrought a deep cup-like hollow, neatly lined with fibrous roots, but the whole is so loosely constructed, and depends for lateral support so much on the stems of the plants, among which it is generally built, that a very slight touch disturbs its beautiful arrangement. Herein from four to six eggs of a deep olive colour are duly laid, and the young hatched. If the latter be taken when nearly fit to fly from the nest, they can with proper care be reared by hand, and this is the only justifiable mode of proceeding for those who wish to keep this fine songster in confinement, as, if the birds survive their first moult, they may live for some years in a cage, and the cocks will in due time exercise their full vocal powers. The nestling plumage of the Nightingale differs much from that of the adult, the feathers above being tipped with a buff spot, just as in the young of the Redbreast, Hedge-Sparrow, and Redstart, thereby shewing the natural affinity of all these forms. Towards the end of summer the Nightingale disappears, and but little has been observed of it in its winter-retreats, which are presumably in the interior of Africa. One of the few records of it at that season proves that it visits the Gold Coast (Ibis, 1872, p. 291). The Nightingale is the Motacilla luscinia in part of Linnaeus, and the Daulias luscinia of some modern ornithologists. In the east of Europe a second species occurs which was not discriminated by Linnaeus, though long known to German bird-fanciers as the Sprosser. This, the Sylvia philomela or Daulias philomela of many scientific writers, is a somewhat larger bird, which fact, and the presence of some faint spots on its breast, have caused it to receive the English name of Thrush-Nightin gale. Its westward range appears to be limited to the valley of the Rhine, and the statement that it has occurred in England is erroneous. Its song is louder than that of the true Nightingale, but not so sweet in tone or so varied in note. The name Nightingale has been vaguely applied to several other birds. The so-called &quot; Virginian Nightin gale &quot; is a species of GROSBEAK (vol. xi. p. 205), and the REDWING (q.v.), strangely enough, has been often spoken of as the &quot; Swedish Nightingale.&quot; The Nightingale holds a place in classical mythology. Procne and Philomela were the daughters of Pandion, king of Attica, who in return for warlike aid rendered him by Tereus, king of Daulis in Thrace, gave him the first-named in marriage. Tereus, however, being enamoured of her sister, feigned that his wife was dead, and induced Philomela to take her place. On her discovering the truth, he cut out her tongue to hinder her from revealing his deceit ; but she depicted her sad story on a robe which she sent to Procne ; and the two sisters then contrived a horrible revenge for the infidelity of Tereus, by killing and serving to him at table his son Itys. Thereupon the gods interposed, changing Tereus into a Hoopoe, Procne into a Swallow, and Philomela into a Nightingale, while Itys was restored to life as a Pheasant, and Pandion (who had died of grief at his daughters dishonour) as a bird-of-prey (see OSPREY). The fable has several variants. Ovid s version may be seen in the 6th Book of his Metamorphoses (lines 412-676). (A. N.) NIGHTSHADE, a general term for the genus of plants known to botanists as Solanum. The species to which the name of Nightshade is commonly given in England is the Solanum Dulcamara, L., which is also called the Bittersweet or Woody Nightshade. It is a common plant in damp hedgebanks and thickets, scrambling over under wood and hedges. It has slender slightly woody stems, with alternate lanceolate leaves more or less cordate and auriculate at the base. The flowers are arranged in droop ing cymes, and resemble those of the potato in shape, although much smaller. The corolla is rotate, of a lilac- blue colour with a green spot at the base of each segment, and is furnished with yellow sessile anthers united at their margins so as to form a cone in the centre of the corolla. The flowers are succeeded by ovate scarlet berries, which in large doses appear to be poisonous or, to say the least, dangerous to children, cases of poisoning by them having occurred. The plant derives its names of bittersweet and Dulcamara from the fact that its taste is at first pleasantly sweet and then bitter. The young stems collected in autumn have been used in medicine as an alterative in rheumatism and certain skin diseases, but are little used at the present time except by homoeopaths, by whom Dulcamara is given as an anticatarrhal remedy in all symptoms produced by cold arising from exposure to damp. It owes its medicinal activity to a bitter principle yield ing by decomposition sugar and the alkaloid &quot; solania,&quot; C 43 H 69 NO 16. This principle has been found in small quan tity in the leaves, stalks, and berries. Dulcamara also con tains another glucoside &quot; dulcamarin,&quot; C 22 H 34 10, which when boiled with dilute acid splits up into sugar and &quot;dul- camaretin,&quot; C 10 H 26 O 6. Solania appears to exert a depres sant action on the vagus nerve and an excitant action on the medulla oblongata. The term Deadly Nightshade is often erroneously applied to this plant, and the popular usage has even been confirmed by so eminent a botanist as Bentham (Handbook of the British Flora, p. 384, 1858). It is generally accepted, however, that the deadly night shade is Atropa Belladonna, L. (see vol. iii. p. 543). Solanum Dulcamara is subject to the same parasitic fungus (Peronospora infestans) as the potato, and may serve as a medium for communicating the spores to the potato if not removed from the hedges of the fields where potatoes are grown. The Garden Nightshade, Solanum nigrum, L., differs from S. Dulcamara in having white flowers in small umbels and globose black berries. It is a common weed in gardens and waste places, growing about 12 or 18 inches high, and has ovate, entire or sinuate-dentate leaves. Two varieties of the plant, one with red and the other with yellow berries, are sometimes met with, but are compara tively rare. The berries have been known to produce poisonous effects when eaten by children, and owe their properties to the presence of solania. They are, however, said to be eaten without inconvenience in British Kaffraria, and in Reunion and Mauritius the leaves are eaten like spinach ; their innocuousness in these cases may, however, be due to the poisonous principle being removed or decom posed by the process of cooking. The name of nightshade is applied to plants of different genera in other countries. American Nightshade is a species of Phytolacca ; the Three-leaved Nightshade is a Trillium; the Malabar Nightshade is a Basella; the Bastard Nightshade is a Rivina; and the Enchanter s Nightshade is Circsea lutetiana. The last-named is not known to possess any poisonous property, and the name seems to have been given to it in the first place in mistake for a species of Mandragora (see MANDRAKE). NIGRITIA. See SOUDAN. NIIGATA, a city of Japan, with a population of about 34,000, the chief town of the province of Echigo, and one of the ports open to foreign trade since 1869, lies in 37 57 N. lat. and 139 E. long., on the west coast of the island of Nippon, on a narrow strip of sandy ground between the left bank of the Shinano and the sea, which though quite at hand is shut out from view by a low range of sandhills. It occupies an area of rather more than one square mile, and consists of five long parallel streets intersected by cross-streets, which in most cases have canals running down the middle and communi cating with the river, so that the internal traffic of the city is mainly carried on by water. The houses are usually built with gables to the street, and roofs and verandas project so as to keep the windows and footpaths from