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MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

1223

MILAN

amused Theseus and his bride. The music of Midsummer Night's Dream is by Mendelssohn and includes the favorite wedding-march.

Midsummer Night's Dream (Music). Composed by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809-47), at the command of the King of Prussia, at whose palace, at Potsdam, it was first produced on October 14, 1843. Aside from the overture, written in 1826, there are 12 numbers: scherzo; fairy-march; chorus, with solos for two sopranos* '"You Spotted Snakes;" melodrama; intermezzo, after the second act; melodrama: "What Hempen Homespuns;" notturno after the third act; andante: wedding-march, after the fourth act; funeral march; dance of the clowns; and finale: chorus of the fairies.

Mignonette (mmfyun-et), a plant cultivated for its fragrance, and £ native of North Africa. The name means little darling It has long clusters of rusty and greenish-white flowers. It is an annual, thrives in sandy soil and blooms the summer through.

Migra'tion. Migration literally includes such permanent changes of place as the movement of the Angles and Saxons from the European continent to England or of the Huns and Turks from Asia to Europe. In the animal world such migrations have often taken place. Especially must the invasions and the retreat of ice during the glacial periods have caused extensive migration of animals, and have had important results on their characteristics. But the most common use of the term is to denote periodic migrations. These are most common among birds, but are found also in other animals. The whales change their fishing-grounds with considerable regularity to seek agreeable and abundant food. Deer, goats and sheep periodically, in some parts of the world, leave the plains for the hills, to escape the flies that torment them. The bison had periods of migration from mountains to plains, and the caribou still changes its grounds regularly between the coast of Labrador and the shores o* Hudson Bay. The lemming, a rat-like animal of northern Scandinavia, multiplies with such rapidity that it overcrowds its territory. Swarms then migrate southward at fairly regular periods several years apart, and advance steadily till they meet the sea. Into this they plunge. But it is not recorded that any survive to return. Among insects migrations of locusts are well-known, but it is not certain whether there is any regularity about them. The same is true of the comparatively rare migrations of butterfly swarms across tropical seas and oceans. In the spring there have been noted fairly regular migrations of herring, mackerel and many other fishes from deep 40 shallow water in order that the higher temperature may hatch the spawn. Regu-

lar migrations at the spawning-season are also noted in the salmon, shad, trout and eels, which leave the sea for the fresh waters of rivers and lakes,, Some turtles are said to migrate with considerable regularity. Of the 23 recognized orders of birds only two are regular migrants, but these include the birds most familiar to us. It is supposed that the habit of migration was set up at the close of the glacial period. The warmer region of the earth may be regarded as the real home of the bird, and the colder as the place selected for breeding. While most of the birds of the United States choose it for their summer quarters, others reside here only in winter, going further north in spring. Again, others are simply birds of passage, wintering south of us and spending summer in the far north. The most extraordinary migrant, perhaps, is a species of plover, which regularly changes its home from Patagonia to Labrador and Greenland, entering the United States at the mouth of the Mississippi and flying north. As to the cause of migration, while it is easy to see that birds gain many advantages by the habit, it is not so easy to understand how they learn the time to change their abode and the course of their flight. It has been suggested that a bird flying at a great height commands a range of 100 miles or more and that the older birds may guide the younger, so that the tradition of the route is preserved. But it is objected that flight often occurs at night, that many birds do not fly high, and that some fly across hundreds of miles of sea or ocean.

Mikado (m%-kd'do), from the Japanese words for exalted and gate, is the ancient and poetic title of the Japanese emperor. The present mikado is the i2ist (or 123d) mikado. See JAPAN and MUTSUHITO.

Milan (mil'an or me-lanr), a city in Italy, the second in "size, ranking next to Naples. It stands in the great Lombard plain, 25 miles south of Lake Como, at the foot of the Alps. Surrounded on three sides by walls, it is entered by 14 gates. Though an old city, it has so often been ravaged by war as to have few ancient buildings. The modern city has broad, regular streets, fine buildings and attractive promenades. The cathedral, on the site of two more ancient ones, begun in 1386 was practically finished, by order of Napoleon, in 1805-13. There are 6,000 statues, in niches on the outside, and a great number of pinnacles. St. Ambrose (868), St. George (750) and St. Maria (1463), with Leonardo da Vinci's famous painting of The Last Supper on its wall, are other ancient churches. The palace of arts and sciences has a valuable collection of paintings by Raphael, Titian, Vandyck, Mantegna and others. The national library has nearly 200,000 volumes, with a museum and an observatory; and the Ambrosian