Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/910

Rh 844 O R I -0 R I about 10 or 15 miles west of San Fernando and then meeting the Atabapo opposite the village. The Guaviare is the first of the great rivers which bring down the waters of the Andes to the Orinoco, and is fit for steam boat traffic a long way up. From its junction with the Guaviare to the great rapid of Mariapiri (a distance of about 180 miles) the Ynirida, which was explored in 1872 by Frederic Montolieu, hastens through a rugged country with a swift and frequently interrupted stream ; above Mariapiri, and as far as Guacamayo (Montolieu s farthest), it forms, on the other hand, a succession of lakes and lagoons with hardly any current (Bull. Soc. Geoff r., Paris, 1880). Though smaller than either the Guaviare, the Ynirida, or the Orinoco, the Atabapo gives its northward direction to the united river, which below the confluence widens out into a noble flood several miles broad, but before long has its channel contracted and twisted and broken by the rough granitic rocks of the country through which it has to force its way. About 80 miles bring the river to the great cataracts of Maypures, and a few miles more to that of Atures ; both are complete barriers to upward naviga tion, and, since Humboldt s glowing description, have been ranked among the most striking pieces of river scenery in South America (Humboldt and Bonpland, Voy. au Nouv. Continent, vol. ii. pp. 360-363). Some distance below Atures is the confluence of the Meta, a powerful many-watered affluent from the Andes, which has been ascended by steamer within 60 miles of Bogota ; but the Orinoco still continues northward till, meeting the Apure, which drains the whole Merida Cordillera, it turns westwards through the great Venezuelan valley. In its onward course it receives a great many tributaries from both north and south, the former being comparatively short, but the latter, especially the Caura and Caroni, rising in the highlands hundreds of miles away. About 50 miles below the mouth of the Caroni and 1 20 miles from the sea begins the enormous delta, embracing 200 miles of coast. The southmost branch, Boca de Navios or Boca de Varime, continues in the line of the river ; the Manamo or Vagre branch strikes off almost at right angles northward to the Gulf of Paria or Golfo Triste. The annual inunda tion of the Orinoco, which makes a kind of false start in April, and, gradually increasing in May, June, and July, reaches its height in September, is extensive enough to lay the country under water in some places for scores of miles inland. As most of the regions through which it passes are in a state of nature, and there is hardly, with the exception of ANGOSTURA (&amp;lt;j.v.), a town of any consider able size on the banks of either main stream or affluents, this noble river-system is but little turned to account for commerce. Not only, however, is it easily navigable for steamers for nearly 800 miles, but, as the lower part of its course lies in the line of the trade-winds, sailing craft are able to make their way slowly upwards against the current. Even at the junction of the Guaviare the height above the sea is only 744 feet. In 1498 Columbus entered Golfo Triste, and probably observed the northern mouths of the Orinoco, and in 1499 the main channel appears to have been noted by Ojeda. The first to attempt the ascent of the river was Diego de Ordaz in 1535, who reached the mouth of the Meta. For its scientific exploration we are mainly indebted to Jose Iturriaga and Jose Solano (1756), Humboldt (1800), and Michelena y Rojas (1855-1856). See Gumilla, El Orinoco ilustrailo (Madrid. 1741) ; Michelena y Roias, Rrnlora- cion oficial (Brussels, 1867). ORIOLE, from the Old French Oriol and that from the Latin aureolus, the name once applied to the bird, from its golden colouring, which is now generally admitted to be the Vireo or ICTERUS (vol. xii. p. 696) of classical authors the Oriolus yalbula of Linnaeus but now commonly used in a much wider sense. The Golden Oriole, which is the type of the Family Oriolidx of modern ornithologists, is a far from uncommon spring-visitor to the British Islands ; but the conspicuous plumage of the male bright yellow con trasted with black, chiefly on the wings and tail always attracts attention, and generally brings about its death. Yet a few instances are known in which it is supposed to have bred in England. The nest is a beautifully interwoven fabric, suspended under the horizontal fork of a bough, to both branches of which it is firmly attached, and the eggs are of a shining white sometimes tinged with pink, and sparsely spotted with dark purple. On the Continent it is a well- known if not an abundant bird, and its range in summer extends so far to the east as Irkutsk, while in winter it is found in Natal and Damaraland. In India it is replaced by a closely allied form, 0. kundoo, chiefly distinguishable by the male possessing a black streak behind as well as in front of the eye ; and both in Asia and Africa are several other species more or less resembling 0. galbula, but some depart considerably from that type, assuming a black head, or even a glowing crimson instead of the ordinary yellow colouring, while others again remain constant to the dingy type of plumage which characterizes the female of the more normal form. Among these last are the aberrant species of the group Mimetes or Mimeta, belonging to the Australian Region, respecting which Mr Wallace pointed out, first in the Zoological Society s Proceedings (1863, pp. 26-28), and afterwards in his Malay Archipelago (ii. pp. 150-153), the very curious facts as yet only explicable on the theory of &quot; mimicry &quot; of which mention has already been made (HONEY-EATER, vol. xii. p. 139). It is a singular circumstance that this group Mimeta first received its name from Captain King (Survey dv. of Australia, ii. p. 417) under the belief that the birds composing it belonged to the Family Mdipkagidat, which had assumed the appearance of Orioles, whereas Mr Wallace s investigations tend to show that the imitation (unconscious, of course) is on the part of the latter. The external similarity of the Mimeta and the TropidorkyncMu of the island of Bouru, one of the Moluccas, is perfectly wonderful, and has again and again deceived some of the best ornithologists, though the birds are structurally far apart. Another genus which has been referred to the Oriolidse, and may here be mentioned, is SphecothercS) peculiar to the Australian Region, and dis tinguishable from the more normal Orioles by a bare space round the eye. (A. N.) ORION, the name of a constellation which has been the centre of many legends in Greece. It bears the form of a warrior carrying a club, and wearing a girdle which is composed of three very beautiful stars. Its disappearance in the autumn is the prelude to storms and rain. The legendary hero Orion, or, as Pindar calls him, Oarion, was according to Homer a giant, fairer and taller than the Aloides. Eos, the dawn-goddess, loved him, but the gods were angry ; Artemis slew him in Ortygia with kindly shaft. A doubtful passage in the Odyssey calls him a mighty hunter. The later poets give various discrepant accounts of his parentage. They usually connect him with some deed of violence to a maid, either the daughter of (Enopion in Chios, or the nymph Upis in Delos, or even Artemis herself. Others say that Artemis loved him, and was induced, by an artifice of the angry Apollo, to shoot him unwittingly. The Old Testament name of the constellation appears to be kesil, the fool or impious (Amos v. 5 ; Job ix. 9, xxxviii. 31). In Arabic and Semitic it is called the giant. Late writers (Cedrenus and the Paschal Chronicle) speak of a Persian identification of Orion with Nimrod. ORISSA, a province of British India, forming a division or commissionership under the jurisdiction of the lieutenant- governor of Bengal, situated between 19 28 and 22 34 15&quot; N. lat. and between 83 36 30&quot; and 87 31 30&quot; E. long. It forms the extreme south-western portion of Bengal,