Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/471

 A P E D 449 in that university ; and on the first day of the ensuing year he was nominated one of the commissioners for the review of the liturgy in the conference held at the Savoy. On the 14th of April 1662 he was elected master of Trinity College, Cambridge, and in August resigned his rectory of St Christopher s and his prebend of Ely. In 1667 he was admitted a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1672 he published at Cambridge Vindicix Epistolarum S. Ignatii, in 4 to, in answer to Daille, to which is subjoined Isaaci Vossii Epistolse, dux. adversus Davidem Blondellum. Upon the death of Dr. Wilkins in 1672, Pearson was appointed his successor in the see of Chester. In 1682 his Annales Cyprianici were published at Oxford, with Fell s edition of that father s works. Pearson was disabled from all public service by ill health a considerable time before his death at Chester on the 16th of July 1686. His last work, the Two Dissertations on the Succession and Times of the First Bishops of Rome, formed the principal part of his Opera Posthuma, edited by Henry Dodwell in 1688. See the memoir in Biographia Britannica, and another by Edward Churton prefixed to the edition of Pearson s Minor Theological Works, 2 vols., Oxford, 1844. PEAT. See FUEL, vol. ix. p. 808. PECCARY. Under this name are included two species of small pig-like animals forming the genus Dicotyles of Cuvier, belonging to the section Suina of the Artiodactyle Ungulates (see MAMMALIA, vol. xv. p. 430). They are peculiar to the New World, and in it are the only surviv ing members of the large group now represented in the Old World by the various species of swine, babirussas, Avart-hogs, and hippopotami. The teeth of the peccaries differ from those of the true pigs (genus Sus) numerically, in wanting the upper outer incisor and the anterior premolar on each side of each jaw, the dental formula being i |, c i, p f , m , total 38. The upper canines have their points directed downwards, not outwards or upwards as in the boars, and they are very sharp, with cutting hinder edges, and completely covered with enamel until worn. The lower canines are large and directed upwards and outwards, and slightly curved backwards. The premolar and molar teeth form a continuous series, gradually increasing in size from the first to the last. The true molars have square quadricus- pidate crowns. The stomach is much more complex than in the true pigs, almost approaching that of a ruminant. In the feet the two middle (third and fourth) metapodial bones, which are completely separate in the pigs, are united at their upper ends, as in the ruminants. On the fore foot the two (second and fifth) outer toes are equally de veloped as in pigs, but on the hind foot, although the inner (or second) is present, the outer or fifth toe is entirely wanting, giving an unsymmetrical appearance of the mem ber, very unusual in Artiodactyles. As in all other exist ing Ungulates, there is no trace of a first digit (pollex or hallux) on either foot. As in the pigs, the snout is trun cated, and the nostrils are situated in its flat, expanded, disk-like termination. The ears are rather small, ovate, and erect ; and there is no external appearance of a tail. The surface is well covered with thick bristly hair, and rather behind the middle of the back is a large and pecu liar gland, which secretes an oleaginous substance with a powerful musky odour. This was mistaken by the old travellers for a second navel, a popular error which sug gested to Cuvier the name of Dicotyles. When the animal is killed for food, it is necessary speedily to remove this gland, otherwise it will taint the whole flesh so as to render it uneatable. There are two species, so nearly allied that they will breed together freely in captivity. Unlike the true pigs, they never appear to produce more than two young ones at a birth. The collared peccary (D. tajacu, Linn., torquatus, Cuvier) ranges from the Red river of Arkansas through the forest Peccary. districts of Central and South America as far as the Rio Negro of Patagonia. Generally it is found singly or in pairs, or at most in small herds of from eight to ten, and is a comparatively harmless creature, not being inclined to attack other animals or human beings. Its colour is dark grey, with a white or whitish band passing across the chest from shoulder to shoulder. The length of the head and body is about 36 inches. The white-lipped peccary or warree (D. labiatus, Cuvier) is rather larger, being about 40 inches in length, of a blackish colour, with the lips and lower jaw white. Its range is less extensive ; it is not found farther north than British Honduras or south of Paraguay. It is generally met with in large droves of from fifty to a hundred or more individuals, and is of a more pugnacious disposition than the former species, and capable of inflicting severe wounds with its sharp tusks. A hunter who encounters a herd of them in a forest has often to climb a tree as his only chance of safety. Both species are omnivorous, living on roots, fallen fruits, worms, and carrion ; and when the^ approach the neigh bourhood of villages and cultivated lands they often inflict great devastation upon the crops of the inhabitants. Fossil remains of extinct species of peccaries of the Pleistocene period have been found in the caves of Brazil, and also as far north as Virginia and South Carolina. They have also been traced backwards in time, with appar ently little modification of structure, to the Upper Miocene formations of Oregon. PECS. See FUNFKIRCHEN, vol. ix. p. 827. PEDOMETER is an apparatus in the form of a watch, which, carried on the person of a traveller, indicates the number of paces made, and thereby approximately the distance travelled. The ordinary form has a dial -plate with chapters for yards and miles respectively, but in some, miles and their fractions only are indicated, while others are divided for kilometres, &c. The registration is effected by the fall of a heavy pendulum, caused by the percussion of each step. The pendulum is forced back to a horizontal position by a delicate spring, and with each stroke a fine-toothed ratchet-wheel attached to it is moved round a certain length. The ratchet communicates with a train of wheels which govern the dial -hands. In using the apparatus a measured mile or other known distance is walked, and the indication thereby made on the dial-plate observed. According as it is too great or too small, the stroke of the pendulum is shortened or lengthened by a screw which correspondingly affects the ratchet motion, XVIII. 57