Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 02.djvu/827

BELLAVITIS. geometry and his method of equipollence. His published works include text-books of descriptive geometry (Padua, 1851; ed. 2, 1868); analytical geometry (Padua, 1870); and other valuable treatises.

BELLAY, be-la', Joachim du (c. 1524-60). A French poet, member of the Pléiade (q.v.); known as 'The French Ovid.' He was a cousin of Cardinal du Bel lay, born in Paris of noble family, but poor and self-educated. His friend- ship with Ronsard dates from 1548, and led to his La defense el Villuslratiijii de la langue fran- çaise (1549) — an admirable piece of literary criticism, followed by a collection (Recueil) of jjoems and another (L'Olive) of love-.sonnets (1550). He went with Cardinal du Bellay to Italy (1550), published a translation of two books of the Æneid (1552), returned after a mysterious love affair, in 1555, to Paris, where he became Canon of Notre Dame, went to Venice, published poems, Latin and French (Les an- tiquités de Rome), in 1588, and his best collec- tion, Les regrets (1550). He died as Archbish- op-designate of Bordeaux while preparing Les jeux rustiques for the press, at the height of advancing powers. In sublimity and pathos he is first in the Pléiade. Spenser translated sixty of his Roman sonnets into English (1591). The best edition of Bellay is by Marty-La veaux (2 vols., 18C6). Bellav's Letters are edited by Nol- hac (1883). There is a Life by Seche (1880). Consult: Pater, Studies in the History of the Renaissanee (London, 1888); Séché, Œuvres choisies avec notes (Paris, 1894). A statue of Bellay was unveiled at Ancenis in 1894, with noteworthy addresses by Hérédia and Brunetière.

BELL'BIRD'. The English name of various tropical birds whose voices suggest the tones of a bell; specifically, a chatterer (family Cotingi- dæ), called campanero by Spanish-speaking peo- ple of the Lower Amazon and the Guianas, where it lives, and Chasmorhynchus niveus by orni- thologists. It resembles the waxwings (Ampe- lidæ) in form, but is pure white, and feeds mainly upon forest fruits gathered mostly in the high tree-tops, where small flocks move about all day, but are by no means common; and at mid- day, when most other birds of the forest are

silent, its note rings out "loud and clear like the sound of a bell. ... You hear his toll, and then a pause for a minute, then another toll, and then a pause again, and then another toll, and so on." So Waterton described it; others have likened the sound to blows upon an anvil, but all agree that it can be heard at an immense dis- tance and is very striking. Another remarkable

feature of this bird and its relatives, several of which live in South and Central America, and have more or less bell-like voices, are the fleshy appendages (caruncles) about the face, espe- cially conspicuous in the present species. From its forehead depends a slender caruncle (see illustration), jet black but dotted all over with starlike tufts of feathers. It was long believed that this caruncle was concerned in the singu- lar voice of the bird, because Charles Waterton (Wanderings in South America, London, 1825) asserted that it could be inflated from the palate, and would stand erect like a rigid spire above the beak to the height of 3 inches. This seemed plausible, but has been ])roved erroneous by ob- servation upon birds kept in captivity, particu- larly about 1891 by J. J. Quelch, a naturalist of Georgetown, British Guiana.

AMAZONIAN BELLBIRD. Showing the Caruncle.

"The caruncle." he says {The Field, London, November 20, 1892), "is never carried upright. The erect position, in fact, is an impossible one, since the organ is made up of very fine elastic tissue, which causes it to depend lower and lower over one side of the beak during extension. When the bird is about to utter its characteris- tic notes, it slowly becomes elongated, at times as much as 5 inches. At the conclusion of the note the organ may remain extended until the next note, or may be partially retracted; but when a long interval takes place the structin-e is always allowed to shrink up to about half an inch or an inch in length, and it then hangs against the beak. During extension the caruncle is never inflated with air, but is always in a state of collapse." Quelch then adds a "descrip- tion of the curious behavior of the bird in utter- ing its ringing notes, which follow great draughts of air into its lungs. A related spe- cies of Costa Rica (Chasniorhynchus tricurun- culata) has "three enormous band-like caruncles on the forehead where it joins the bill, and one on each side at the corner of the mouth." A Brazilian species {Chasmorhynchus nudieollis) is white, with large spaces of naked skin about the ej'es, beak, and throat, colored green. In Australia, one of the honey-suckers (Meliphagi- die) is called bellbird — a small greenish-yellow forest bird (Uanorhina melanophoys), whose ching-ching from the tea-tree 'scrub' is welcomed as an assurance that water is near. In New Zealand another honey-sucker (Anthorius mela- nura), now nearly extinct, is given the name for a similar reason ; it is remarkable for deco- rating its thicket-hidden nest with the most gaudy feathers it can find.

BELL, BOOK, AND CAN'DLE. The excomnumication by bell, book, and candle is a solemnity belonging to the Church of Rome. The orticiating ecclesiastic pronounces the formula of excommunication, consisting of maledictions on the head of the person anathematized, and closes the pronouncing of the sentence by shutting the book from which it is read, taking a lighted candle and casting it to the ground, and tolling the bell as for the dead. This mode of excommunication appears to have existed in the Western churches as early as the Eighth Century. Its symbolism may be explained by quoting two or three sentences from the conclusion of the form of excommunication used in the Scottish Church before the Reformation: "Cursed be they from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot. Out be they taken of the book of life. And as