Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 18.djvu/540

* SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. 464 SPORADIC. There would follow migrations and the foundation of now colonies in scattered areas. Adaptation to each new environment would take place, and in the course of time variation would set in and the evolution of higher organisms take place. See KVOLUTION. Consult : Chambers's EncyclopcEdia, art. "Spontaneous Generation"; Spencer, Princi- ples of liiolofiy (Vew York, 1898-1901) ; Haeckel, The History of Creulioii (ib., 1876) ; Verworn, General Philosophy (ib., 1899). SPONTINI, spon-te'ne, Gasparo Luigi Paci- Fico (1774-18.51). An Italian dramatic com- poser, born at Majolati, Ancona. In 1791 he be- came a pupil at the Conservatory della Pieta de" Turchini at Naples, where he studied under Sala and Tritto. As early as 1803 he had pro- duced sixteen operas in the light Italian style used at that time. His opera Fm finta filosofa and two imitations of French opera coniique, Julie and La petite- maison, met with little success. He then gave himself up to the study of Mo- zart and showed a marked change in the one-act opera Milton produced in 1804. The Empress Josephine, to whom he had dedicated the score of Milton, had him appointed chamber-composer, and she secured the production of La vestale in 1807. It proved a great success. His grand opera Ferdinand Cortez (1809) was equally suc- cessful. In 1810, as director of the Italian Opera, he staged Mozart's Don (liovatini in the original form for the fir.st time in Paris. In 1820 he was appointed general musical director at Berlin. He wrote for the Berlin festival play Lalla liiikh (1821), remodeled as the opera yirnnalml, oder das Ilosenfest von Kaschniir (1822) ; Alcidor (182.5) : and Agnes von Eohen- statifen (1829). In 1842 he resigned his position and returned to Paris. He died in his birth- place. SPOONBILL. An ibis-like bird of the family Plataleidie, distinguished by the flat, dilated, spoon-like form of tlie bill. The species are five or six, in two genera widely distributed. The spoonbills of the Old Yorld belong to the genua Platalea, and have the windpipe curiously con- voluted. The spoonbills of the New World lack these convolutions, and are therefore placed in a distinct genus Ajaja. The roseate spoonbill (Ajaja ajaja ), the only American species, is very abun- dant within the tropics. It is nearly tliree feet in length, and is a beautiful bird, with plumage of a fine rose color, of which the tint is deepest on the wings: the tail-coverts are carmine. It was formerly abundant in Florida, but is now rare there, and most commonly seen along the coast of Texas. It nests in colonies, and builds a coarse platform of sticks, in trees, on which it lays three eggs, white spotted with brown. The only European species is the white spoonbill {Piatalea Icueorodia), common in marshy dis- tricts throighout Northern Europe and Asia in summer, and in the salt marshes of the Mediter- ranean in winter. See Colored Plate of Wader.s. SPOON-BILLED SANDPIPER. A rare reddish, stint-like sandpiper ( Eurynorhynchus ■pygmwus) of Eastern .sia, remarkable only for its spoon-shaped bill. (See Coloi'cd Plate of Shore-Birds.) It breeds in Siberia, occasionally crossing to the Alaskan coast, and migrates southward in winter to China and India. SPOON'ER, .loii.N' CoiT ( 1843- ) . An Ameri- can lawyer and legislator, born in Lawrenceburg, Ind. In 1859 he removed with his parents to Wisconsin. He graduated at the University of Wisconsin in 1864. Ho served during the Civil War first as a private in the Fortieth Wisconsin Volunteers and subsequently as a captain in the Fiftieth Wisconsin, and was brevetted major at the close of hostilities. In 1867 he was admitted to the bar, and from 1868 to 1870 he was Assist- ant Attorney-Cieneral of the State. He was a member of the State Assembly in 1872-74, and in 18S5 he was elected to the United States Senate. In 1892 he was defeated for Governor by George W. Peck, and in 1893 resumed legal practice in Madison. In .lanuary, 1897, he was again elected to the United States Senate to succeed Senator Vilas. He took a prominent part in legislation and debates, and became recognized as the spokes- man of the JIcKinlcv and Roosevelt administra- tions. He was reelected for a third time in .lanu- ary, 1903, despite the opposition of Governor La Follette's faction in the Wisconsin Legislature. SPOONER, SHEARj..SHrB (1809-59). An American dentist and author, born at Brandon, Vt. He graduated in 1830 at Sliddlebury (Vt.) College, at the College of Physicians and Sur- geons, New York City, in 1835, and practiced dentistry in Noy York with much success until 1858. He contributed extensively to periodicals, professional and other, and published, in addi- tion to dental works, two compilations once valu- able : Anecdotes of Painters, Engrarers. ftciil/itors, and Architects, and Curiosities of Art (1853), and a Biographical and Critical Dictionary of Painters, Engruirrs, Sculptors, and Arcliitects from Ancient to Modern Times (1853; new ed. 1865). He also bought and restored the plates of BoydeU's Shakespeare Gallery, which he repub- lished. SPORADES, spor'a-dez (Gk., scattered). The collective name for the islands lying in the .south- eastern portion of the .-Egean Sea between Samos and Rhodes, and east of the Cyclades (q.v.) (Map: Greece, .J 5). The ancients inoludeil un- der the Sporades a number of islands which lie south of the Cyclades proper and whoso principal members are Melos, los, Santorin, and .morgos; but these are now cl.assed with the Cyclades, be- longing to the Greek nomarchy of that name. The Sporades proper belong to Turkey. Their prin- cipal members are Astropalia, Loros. Patmos, Nicaria, Calimno, Co.s, Nisyros, and Scarpanto. Some also include Rhodes, Samos, Chios, and Lesbos with the neigldjoring islands. In a wider sense the name Sporades is applied to all the islands of the .-Egean Sea except tlie Cyclades proper. The group lying in the western part of the sea, north and east of Euboea or Negropont, the principal member of which is Scyros, are known as the Northern Sporades, and belong to the Greek Nomarchy of Eubrea. For details, see articles on the principal individual islands. SPORAD'IC (Lat. sporadicus. from Gk. airopaiMbi, sporadikos. from (nrelpeti', speirein, to sow). Isolated. In medicine, a disease is sporadic when but few cases, widely separated, appear. If many cases are found in the same region, the disease is called epidemic (q.v.). In botany, sporadic growths are those which are scattered or widely dispersed.