Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 4.djvu/580

518 at Antwerp, and he died in that city on the 12th March 1628. The usual statement that he died at an earlier date at Hamburg or Lübeck is incorrect. Little of his music has been published, and the opinions of critics differ much as to its merits. A claim made on his behalf to the composition of the music of the English national anthem has given rise to much discussion, but it seems now generally agreed that the claim is not well founded. Contemporary writers speak in the highest terms of Bull's skill as a performer on the organ and the virginals.

 BULLA (literally a bubble) was the term used by the for any boss or stud, such as those on s, -s, s, &c. It was applied, however, more particularly to an, generally of, worn suspended from the by children of  until they assumed the toga virilis, when it was hung up and dedicated to the. See. In and , bulla denotes the   of  or  form, bearing the  and generally the  of its owner, which was attached to official s. The bulla of the  was of , while the  bulla was of. See.  BULLFINCH (Pyrrhula vulgaris), a species of conirostral bird belonging to the family Fringillidce, of a bluish- grey and black colour above, and generally of a bright tile-red beneath, the female differing only in having its colours somewhat duller than the male. It is a shy bird, not associating with other species, and frequents well-wooded districts, being very rarely seen on moors or other waste lands. It builds a shallow nest composed of twigs lined with fibrous roots, on low trees or thick underwood, only a few feet from the ground, and lays four or five eggs of a bluish white colour speckled and streaked with purple. The young remain with their parents during autumn and winter, and pair in spring, not building their nests, how ever, till May. In spring and summer they feed on the buds of trees and bushes, choosing, it is said, such only as contain the incipient blossom, and thus doing immense injury to orchards and gardens. In autumn and winter they feed principally on wild fruits and on seeds. The note of the bullfinch, in the wild state, is soft and pleasant, but so low as scarcely to be audible ; it possesses, however, great powers of imitation, and considerable memory, and can thus be taught to whistle a variety of tunes. Bull finches are very abundant in the forests of Germany, and it is there that most of the piping bullfinches sold in this country are trained. They are taught continuously for nine months, and the lesson is repeated throughout the first moulting, as during that change the young birds are apt to forget all that they have previously acquired. The bullfinch is a native of the northern countries of Europe, occurring in Italy and other southern parts only as a winter visitor. White and black varieties are occasionally met with ; the latter, it is said, on the authority of White of Selborne, may be produced by feeding the bullfinch exclusively on hemp-seed, when its plumage gradually changes to black. It- breeds in confinement, and hybrids between it and the canary have been produced.  BULLINGER, (1504-1575), an eminent Reformer, was born at Bremgarten, near Zurich. He studied at Emmerich and Cologne, where he read some of Luther s works, and after his return home lectured at the abbey of Kappel. In 1527 he heard Zwingli at Zurich, and in the following year he accompanied him to the great conference at Berne. He was made pastor at Bremgarten in 1529, and married one Anna Adlischwegler, formerly a nun. In 1531 he had to fly to Zurich in consequence of the Catholic victory at Kappel, and was soon afterward appointed minister of the principal* church. He was a powerful upholder of the Zwinglian doctrine of the Lord s Supper, and wrote an able defence against Luther. He had also numerous controversial writings against the Anabaptists. His printed works are very numerous, and many of them were translated into English. They form ten vols. folio. Bullinger died at Zurich in 1575.  BULLION is a term applied to the gold and silver of the mines brought to a standard of purity. The term is of commercial origin, and has reference to the precious metals as a medium of exchange. It followed from this office of gold and silver that they should approximate in all nations to a common degree of fineness; and though this is not uniform even in coins, yet the proportion of alloy in silver, and of carats alloy to carats fine in gold, has been reduced to infinitesimal differences in the bullion of commerce, and is a prime element of value even in gold and silver plate, jewellery, and other articles of manufac ture. All the new gold and silver coinage of France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Belgium, and the United States probably of a still wider circle of the principal coining countries in the world contain nine-tenths of pure metal. The coinage of Russia is on the British standard of eleven- twelfths, as nearly as it can be expressed in simple fractions of pure gold and silver, the alloy in silver being a little more in all cases than the alloy in gold. Bullion; whether in the form of coins, or of bars and ingots stamped, is sub ject, as a general rule of the London market, not only to weight but to assay, and receives a corresponding value. The recognition of gold and silver from the earliest times as a convenient means of purchase, their ultimate adoption as a prevailing standard of value, their coinage by all the richer states into pieces of money, in virtue of which their circulation and absorption have been immensely increased, and the extent to which they have become the necessary financial reserve of Governments, banks, trading companies, and merchants, have given to these metals a greatly more extended use and importance than they could have acquired in the ordinary process of arts and manufactures ; though even in this latter sphere, as gold and silver become more abundant and communities richer, the purposes to which they are applied and the demand for them are susceptible of much expansion. Writers of high authority have attempted at various periods to estimate the produc tion of gold and silver, and correlatively their use and con- sumpt in the monetary system and the arts ; but there is scarcely any subject of statistical inquiry on which it is so difficult to arrive at more than conjectural results. Yet in view of the theoretical speculations that arose on the Cali- f ornian and Australian gold discoveries, the produce of these new fields of supply may here be worthy of notice. The Californian mines were computed to have in three years yielded gold to the value of 35,000,000 sterling. The Australian mines, still more prolific, were estimated in three years from their opening to be equal to an annual produce of 20,000,000 sterling. Such results, sustained over a considerable period of years, presented a phenomenon similar to the more slowly developed effects of the discovery of the South American mines in the IGth century ; and it must be admitted that California and Australia, after many reverses in their mining industry, remain the most gold-productive countries in the world. But their produce of bullion has of late years much fallen in amount. The director of the United States Mint, in his report for 1875, estimates the annual yield of gold and silver in California and other United States possessions at $100,000,000, or about 20,000,000. The total export of bullion and specie from Australia, after deducting the import (chiefly intercolonial), varied in the fifteen years 1858-1872 from Hi to 7 millions sterling per annum the general tendency being towards the lower amounts in the later years (Statistical Abstract for Colonial and 