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The Natural History of Ireland/Volume 1/The Sea Eagle

[Note 2012 The White-tailed Eagle is being reintroduced to Ireland. Extinct in Ireland in the 1900s due to persecution from landowners.The last pair bred on the coast of Mayo (Maigh Eo) in 1912]

THE SEA EAGLE. White-tailed Eagle.

Haliaetos albicilla, Briss. (sp.) Falco ossifragus, Linn.

Is found in suitable localities throughout Ireland, and is resident.

Distribution, Eyries, Habits, &c. The first Sea Eagle I had the satisfaction of seeing in Ireland, was on the 25th June, 1832, when visiting the majestic promontory of Horn Head (Donegal), which rises precipitously from the ocean to an elevation of nearly 600 feet. On looking over the cliff on the eastern side, one of these birds rose from a platform of rock about sixty yards distant. Immediately afterwards, on reaching the northern side, I perceived another sitting on her nest, about a fourth of the way from the summit of the precipice; when she flew off, two eggs, greenish-white in colour, like those of the swan, (Cygnus olor), were exposed to view. Very near to this was another nest at a similar distance from the top, but it was untenanted, and from its proximity to the other, I should rather suppose that both had belonged to the same pair of eagles in different years, than that they were occupied by two pair at the same time. Less than a furlong distant to the eastward of the Head, there was a nest similarly situated, and containing two eaglets. To obtain these, we engaged a man accustomed to the apparently hazardous exploit of descending precipices. A rope being attached to his body for safety, and a basket to his back for the reception of the eaglets, he was lowered to the nest, from which he brought up the birds without injury either to himself or them. The parents were most vociferous during the robbing of their eyrie, taking hurried flights, evidently in despair, towards the nest, but did not attack, nor even closely approach the plunderer, nor did they come within fair gun-shot of the rock. The eaglets were almost entirely feathered. The first layer of this nest, as well as that of the other two, was composed of strong stems of heather ; being unable by looking over the rock to see the lining, I had it brought up, and found it to be the tender twigs of heath, and plants of Luzula sylvatica, both of which grow on the summit of the cliff. About the nest, there were many legs of rabbits, and the remains of puffins (Mormon fratercula, Temin.) On the following day I saw five sea eagles in mature plumage Footnote 1 all that were then said to be at " the Horn." The bird which we raised from the nest containing eggs, was thought by the gamekeeper to have no partner, as he had killed a male bird a few weeks before. I gazed for a long time at three of these eagles, both when they were at rest and on wing ; at first through a telescope, but as they permitted a much nearer approach than was anticipated, I had afterwards an excellent and near view of them. The head and neck in every position appeared almost as white as the tail, Footnote 2 and was so distinguished from a great distance, more especially when thrown into relief by a dark rocky back-ground. One of these birds was pursued by several gulls (Larus camis?) and kestrels, which kept closely flying after, and sometimes even apparently striking him. A gull certainly once did so, but the eagle, " towering in his pride of place," did not deign even momentarily to notice any of his puny assailants.

Here to the present time these noble birds probably still maintain their ground. I learn from scientific friends Footnote 3 who visited Horn Head on the 4th of August, 1845, that from one point of view they saw five eagles, three old (as denoted by their white tails) soaring above, and two young (as was supposed from their darker plumage) flying along the face of the cliffs. At Tory Island, off this coast, the same party saw two sea eagles a few days afterwards, and were told that a pair, but never more, has always an eyrie there.

Under the Golden Eagle, it has been mentioned, that of the number thirteen or fourteen eagles killed at the Horn within four years Footnote 4 all but one individual were the Haliaetos albicilla.

I was informed by a gentleman resident at Dunfanaghy, the village nearest to Horn Head, that in winter the sea eagle is comparatively numerous, and that he has sometimes seen as many as six or seven in company on the strand." Footnote 5 They are supposed to be attracted hither at this season by rabbits, which greatly abound at the Horn. In an article by John Vandeleur Stewart, Esq., on the Birds, &c, of Donegal, which appeared in the Magazine of Natural History for 1832 (p. 578), the golden eagle is mentioned as resident and rare ; the sea eagle as resident and common. The author states that he had received three specimens of the latter for his museum in ddition to five living eaglets, and fully describes the various stages of plumage the species undergoes. Mr. W. Sinclaire had a splendid bird of this species from the same locality. It likewise frequents Malin Head, the extreme northern point of Ireland. At Burt, also, in the county of Donegal, this species is said to be seen every year about the month of May. In the county of Antrim, the sea eagle has an eyrie at Fairhead, the most lofty and sublime of the basaltic promontories of the north-east coast. When visiting this place on the 16th of July, 1839, (accompanied by Mr. Selby and the Rev. E. Bigge,) a pair of these birds appeared soaring about the headland. An intelligent man, long resident in the neighbourhood, since stated, that they build annually, very early in the season, on the same platform of rock, and the number of young was always two, except in one year, when to the surprise of the people living in the vicinity, four eaglets made their appearance. These were all about the same size, and appeared in company with the two old birds. The man was questioned particularly respecting this circumstance, as no instance of the kind is perhaps on record ; and although he could not say that the four young were actually seen in the nest, yet at the usual time of eaglets appearing on wing with their parents, four young birds unquestionably bore them company. A pair only frequent Fairhead, except in autumn, when the young are still there. In the Island of Bathlin, the sea eagle is said to have an eyrie. This species, as well as the golden eagle, has been taken in Glenarm Park ; and, on the 6th of September, 1837, two were seen in company on Galbally mountain, near the Garron Point. An adult bird was shot in the winter of 1842-43? at Larne Lough, under the following circumstances : — A wildfowl shooter was lying in ambush on the shore, in the hope that the flowing tide would bring some wigeon within range, when the eagle appeared overhead, intent, as he imagined, on his ' ' game." The royal bird floating in the air looked down upon the swimming wild-fowl, expanded the claws of one of its feet, then clasped them together, — an act, perhaps, even more suggestive to the shooter of the bird's intent, than was the air-drawn dagger to Macbeth ; and, before it could again clutch the air, the " charge" intended for the wigeon brought it to the ground. One pities the majestic bird falling a sacrifice under such circustances, and wishes that the slayer had been imbued with the feeling of "William Tell, as exemplified in the following passage : —

" Scaling yonder peak, I saw an eagle wheeling near its brow, O'er the abyss : his broad expanded wings

Lay calm and motionless upon the air,

As if he floated there without their aid,

By the sole act of his unlorded will,

That buoyed him proudly up. Instinctively

I bent my how ; yet kept he rounding still

His airy circle, as in the delight

Of measuring the ample range beneath ;

And round about absorb'd, he heeded not

The death that threaten'd him. I coidd not shoot !

'Twas liberty ! — I turned my bow aside,

And let him soar away !"

J. Sheridan Knowles, William Tell. Act 1, Scene 2.

In the Belfast mountains, far remote from any of its habitations, I was once, (October 2, 1832,) gratified by the sight of an eagle, which was soaring, attended first by one kestrel, and afterwards by two of these birds. The snowy whiteness of the tail proved it to be adult ; it remained in view for about a quarter of an hour, then disappeared in the direction of the Cavehill. The last I have heard of being taken near Belfast, was trapped in the Deer Park, about thirty years ago.

Late in the autumn of 1844, two eagles were observed flying over Ballydrain, a few miles from Belfast, by the same person who supplied the information respecting the Fairhead birds. When asked, was he sure of their having been eagles, the reply was : — " Do you think I don't known the yelp of them ; " and truly, their barking or yelping cry is most peculiar.

When in August, 1836, at Sleive Donard Footnote 6 the chief of the Mourne mountains, in the county of Down, a cliff situated quite inland, was pointed out as the " Eagle's rock ; " — so named in consequence of having been at one period the eyrie of this bird. Our guide informed us, that eagles had not bred there of late years (their place being supplied by ravens), but that they annually build at less frequented places among the range of mountains. Here they are frequently met with by Lord Roden's gamekeeper, but are seldom seen so low down as Tollymore Park, where one only had been taken within the preceding nine years Footnote 7 A well-known collector of objects of Natural History, who has spent much time among the mountains of Mourne, Footnote 8 stated in 1831, that he had at various periods seen three or four pairs of eagles there, and once visited a nest in an inland situation, containing two eggs. These birds were accused of committing great devastation, " killing a sheep every week" and very often sweeping down and bearing off a goose from the farm-yard. One of the finest sea eagles which has come under my own observation, was shot in that neighbourhood, (near Dundrum,) on the 13th of January, 1845, when in the act of pursuing the fowls in a farmer's yard. This bird was preserved for the late Marquis of Downshire, who kindly supplied me with all the information respecting it. " It weighed 10| lbs., measured three feet from the point of the beak to the end of the tail, and seven feet four inches from tip to tip of the wings."

When in June, 1834, at Achil Head (Mayo), which is fondly, but erroneously, believed by the inhabitants of the island, to approximate the shores of the western world more nearly than any other European land, and stretching out afar into the Atlantic, is rendered sublime, less from altitude than from the utter barrenness of its desolate and inaccessible cliffs, a suitable accompaniment to the scene appeared in a sea eagle, which rose startled from her nest on the ledge of an adjoining precipice. Mr. R. Ball, my companion on the occasion, thus referred to this eagle in a lecture delivered before the Zoological Society, in Dublin : — "One of the most striking and valuable results of practical ornithology, is the extraordinary manner in which the scenery where a bird is first observed becomes impressed on the memory. I can see in my mind's eye the whole scene, when peering over a precipice at Achil Head, a sea eagle started from the rocks below, and ascended in spirals to a great height above Saddle Head, which towered over us. It was sunset of a summer evening. We were weary, hungry, foiled in the object which led us to the Head, and many miles from the place where we were to get food and rest. Yet the sight of this bird in its native wilds at once refreshed us, and I at least felt inspirited and repaid for a day of great fatigue. I could then enjoy the beauty of the scene, the boldness of the rocks, the vastness of the great western ocean, dashing its waves in broken foam from the American coasts. The scathed majestic Saddle Head, the setting sun, the wild grandeur of the whole struck upon me, and I bent my course back with a feeling of gratification, that, but for the occurrence of the eagle, would have been one of having made a profitless excursion."

Two of these birds (adults) were seen by us the next day,soaring above a lake in the island, and we were informed by Lieutenant Reynolds Footnote 9 that four pair of sea eagles breed in Achil. With respect to their being in so wild a district comparatively fearless of man, it may be stated, that the gentleman just named when once shooting there, had, with his first barrel brought down a grouse, which an eagle stooped to carry off, and when just in the act of seizing, was itself shot by the second barrel. Such a proceeding, however, was more like that of a golden eagle, than of the species now under consideration. Lieut. Reynolds assured me, that in Achil he once saw a pair of old sea eagles attack and kill a young bird of their own species, which they eat, leaving only the bill and legs. Footnote 10

Although we associate the sublime in scenery with the eagle, yet where these birds are of frequent occurrence, as at Achil, they are occasionally found in connection with the next step to the sublime, — the ridiculous ; an example of which we have in one being shot by a man from his bed, as it was feeding on a dead pig.

We were assured by Serjeant Croker, of the Constabulary, that about six months before we visited Ballycroy, an eagle, when distant a few yards only from him and several persons, carried off a hen from that village. He was informed that a similar occurrence had several times taken place. True, we were long before told this, and much more, respecting the eagles of the district, in the Wild Sports of the West (letter 19); but I was not aware whether the author intended his admirably graphic narrative, — almost " too good to be true," — to be understood as literally correct. It is there remarked, that " the eagle in the gray of morning sweeps through the cabins, and never fails in carrying off some prey;" Footnote 11 that " to black fowls, eagles appear particularly attached ; and the villagers (of Dugurth) avoid as much as possible rearing birds of that colour " (p. 107). This partiality, if such there really be, is probably owing to the black fowls being the most readily seen by the eagle, both from a distance and when with all his fears upon him, — for well he knows the evil of such ways, — he makes a sudden stoop to the poultry about the cabin-door.

Mr. M'Calla, writing from Roundstone, Connemara (Galway), in 1841, supplied me with the following information in substance respecting this species.It is common throughout that district ; has its eyrie in cliffs rising from the sea ; in trees growing on the small islands of inland lakes, and in once instance built on a green islet without any trees. Footnote 12 A pair has bred for a number of years on the marine island of Boffin, and from the nest being inaccessible, a brood of eaglets has been annually reared ; these have always left the island so soon as able to wing their way elsewhere. The inhabitants of the island believe, that the pair of old birds which frequent it, not only guard, and abstain from injuring their fowl, but that they will not suffer other birds of prey to molest them.Footnote 13 The people of Connemara generally, indeed, believe that the eagle never takes away any fowl from about the houses in the vicinity of its nest. My informant has seen a sea eagle lift a duck from near the door of a house, at a distance from its eyrie, and bear it away, but being pursued by a number of gray crows (Corvus comix), it dropped the prey, which was still alive, though much torn by its talons. This species of crow, which is abundant in the district, is said to be the " inveterate enemy of the eagle," and to gather from all quarters to harass and attack it, so soon as the royal bird comes in sight. The writer has visited fourteen eagles' nests, and robbed several of the eggs, which were never more than two in number. A few years ago it was considered a dangerous undertaking to rob an eyrie, and persons went armed with guns to protect the aggressor, but my informant has never himself been assailed, nor known men to be attacked Footnote 14 by the parent birds. They appear to breed for a number of years in the same nest, renewing it every season. One built in a yew tree, growing upon an island of the lake on the western side of Urrisbeg mountain, was, with the accumulated materials of the nest of the preceding years, nine feet in diameter. The portion in which the eggs were deposited, was lined with wool, the fur of the hare, &c.

On the 15th Feb., 1847, Mr. R. Ball received from the county of Carlow, where it was shot, the finest sea eagle he had ever seen, the weight of which was 131bs. He remarked : — "We have one eagle of the same character in the Zoological Garden. I would almost call it a species, if A. albicilla did not vary so much. The size is much greater than ordinary, and the bearing more lofty ; besides, our living specimen, though young when we got it, assumed the mastery over a number of others, and has kept it ever since.Footnote 15 It cannot be that this is merely the female, or else in about thirty living sea eagles which we have had, we never had any but this one. There is a good deal of white on the back, and the breast is strongly and very beautifully spotted with that colour."

The species is said to breed at Lugnaquilla, the loftiest of the Wicklow mountains ; and there is an eyrie at Moher cliffs, county of Clare.Footnote 16 It has occasionally been met with about Youghal, and has several eyries in the county of Cork; in June, 1837, one was seen on Knockmeledown mountain, county of Waterford.Footnote 17 It frequents the Saltees, off the Wexford coast, and the burrow of Ballyteigue, both being places plentifully stocked with rabbits Footnote 18 The lofty marine cliffs, noble mountains, and grand rocky islets of Kerry, are favourite abodes of this eagle It may, therefore, have been this species, and not the golden eagle, which was seen (as noticed under that bird) by some of our party and others at Mangerton. The lofty and admirably picturesque cliff between the Upper and Lower Lake of Killarney, called the ' ( Eagle's Nest," bears that name in consequence of its containing an eyrie either of this species or of the golden eagle : — to each it would be equally suited. Montagu, apparently without positive information, speaks of the sea eagle as breeding there annually.

Eagles visiting Lough Berg to prey on dead fish. — I have been informed by Mr. Wm. Todhunter, formerly resident at Portumna, on the banks of Lough Derg (Galway), that about the 20th of June, 1835, three eagles visited the shores of that lake, attracted apparently by immense quantities of perch, which, with some trout and pike, ascended in a sick state to the surface of the water, and died there. These eagles admitted of a near approach, and were not disturbed by a steam-boat passing twice in the day within a hundred yards of them : they remained for about three weeks. Early in the month of July, in 1836 and 1837, when the fish likewise died in numbers, two eagles visited the place, and continued a similar time. In 1838, but few fish died, and the eagles, wihch made their appearance about the end of July, stayed but for a short period. My informant attributed the fatality of the fish to the " hot weather," stating that where they died, the water was but from one to three feet in depth, and consequently would be much acted on by heat. The lake generally is shallow, its average depth being about eight feet, and there is no apparent current through it Footnote 19

Eagles obtained by simple means. — Montagu relates an instance of a sea eagle being so much wounded by a charge of snipe-shot, as, after flying some distance, to fall and be captured. I have seen one in captivity, which was similarly obtained at the Horn, by Mr. John Sims of Dunfanaghy, near to whom it rose as he was returning from snipe-shooting. But, by still simpler means, an eagle was captured in the county of Tyrone, at the end of December, 1837, when a man on turning suddenly round a rock, came close upon one, and attacking it on the instant with his walking-stick, so disabled the bird as to bear it off in triumph.

Habits in captivity. Kinds of food preferred, &c.

— The Rev. Thomas Knox of Toomavara, (Tipperary), remarked in a letter dated November 22, 1837, with reference to two young sea eagles, birds of that year, which he had in captivity, that he attributed their clean healthy state in a great measure to " having placed in their cage, which is very large, a tank of water in which they have full room to wash themselves. They seldom miss a day without doing so, and the time preferred is immediately after eating : even in cold weather, they seem to enjoy the ablution." Footnote 20 Their food is varied as much as possible ; raw beef, liver, eels now and then, rooks, small birds, and all the dead rats that can be got ; the last are preferred to anything else. They sometimes swallow small birds whole, and the feathers are afterwards ejected in castings about the size of a hen's egg; but when not very hungry, they pluck the feathers off. When young, one of them would occasionally get out between the bars of the cage, and take a flight about the place ; on its being confined again, the bird that remained behind chastised the transgressor, which, as an additional mark of disfavour, was not permitted to occupy the same perch with it for the remainder of that day, [in fact, was "put in the corner"] The quantity they eat daily was very small compared with what was required by a kestrel kept during the preceding summer : this bird was very ravenous, and when satisfied, would hide the remainder of the food given to it, in a very cunning manner."

The two sea eagles taken from the nest at ' ' the Horn," were trained so far by Mr. Rd. Langtry, that they allowed him to carry them on his arm. When given liberty in the morning, they kept about the demesne during the day, generally attended his call to the lure in the evening, when they were put up for the night, throughout winch, however, they were ccasionally at large'. As food, they preferred rats to fish.Footnote 21 When not very hungry, they, after tasting the blackbird {Tardus merula), showed a dislike to it, but that this did not arise from colour, was evident from black chickens being always as acceptable as others ; gray crows {Corvus cornier) were also disliked, though magpies (Corvus pica) were favourite food.Footnote 22  On one occasion during rainy weather, they refused to eat for a few days, though at the same time they never retired to the shelter of their sheds, as buzzards {Buteo vulgaris) and peregrine falcons {Falco peregrinus) did, which were kept along with them. One of these eagles, (a male,) killed four pet birds, his constant companions in the same enclosure : — these were a white owl, a kite, a buzzard, and a peregrine falcon, that when he was tied, Footnote 23 either alighted near him, or were carelessly fastened within his reach. The first intimation my friend had of the owl's death, was its legs (all else had been devoured) lying beside the post, where a few hours before he had seen their owner alive and well. The eagle had partly plucked the falcon preparatory to eating it, just as his master appeared in view, when he instantly sprang from the body of his victim, and further evinced the consciousness of his misdeed by allowing it to be carried off, though any food given in the ordinary manner, he would not permit to be removed.

These eagles occasionally broke loose, and flew about the place, but eventually, after having made several circuits in the air, they would alight near the pond at which they were kept, and allow their master to lay hold of, and place them again in captivity. After one of these birds had been kept about two, and the other four and a half years, they were lost by flying to a distance, where they were shot. The latter exhibited the white tail which denotes maturity, early in October, 1836, being then four years and a half old : it proved a male bird on dissection, and weighed 11 lbs.

A few words may be given on eagles, as observed in Scotland and England. My friend, the owner of the birds just noticed, informed me, after returning from the very extensive and moun- tainous shooting quarters of Aberarder and Dunmaglass, in the north of Inverness-shire, in 1838, that during his three months' stay there, no eagles were seen. But on the 28th of September, when a few miles distant from that locality, he observed four old birds in company (all displaying white tails), soaring above a mountain northward of Loch Ness. In the autumn of the following year, this species was first seen by him at Aberarder, and when there myself during the month of September, 1842, I saw one on wing near the house ; its tail was conspicuously white, as was that of the other individual. It is singular that all these birds should have been adult, for at the time of their occurrence, the young birds of the year are leaving the eyries and " regions round about" to the sway of their respective parents. Old birds seem also to be given to wandering at this period of the year.

The following note, together with that on the Bald Eagle, was contributed by me to Charlesworth's Magazine of Natural History in 1838 (vol. 2, p. 164).

Golden and Sea Eagle, Aquila Chrysaetos and A. albicilla. — In the more recent works on British ornithology, there is not any notice of eyries, either of the golden or sea eagle, in England at the present time ; but, from my having seen two birds of one or other of these species, (though not sufficiently near to be specifically determined,) on the 13th of July, 1835, about the English lakes, they most probably breed in that quarter. One appeared near the eastern extremity of the vale of Newlands, not far from Keswick, and the other at Crummock Water. Willoughby states that there was an eyrie of the sea eagle in Whinfield Park, West- moreland; and Latham, on the authority of Dr. Heysham, remarks that the same species bred near Keswick. When visiting all of the lakes of Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Lancashire, except Lowes-Water, Ennerdale, and Wast-water, in the month of July, 1835, I saw eagles on the one day only.*

eagles here at this season. Mr. J. V. Stewart, however, with reference to this part of the country, remarks : — " In spring I have seen the white-tailed eagle apparently paired with Ossifragus (the adult with the immature bird), and I have reason to believe that they breed together." He adds : — " The males at this season are very assiduous in their attention to the females, and very pugnacious in their rivalry. Some time ago, two of them near this fought so furiously for a female, who remained soaring above, that having in the contest fixed their talons firmly into each other's breasts, they dropped to the ground, and there continued the struggle so fiercely, that a peasant passing by, was enabled to despatch them both with a stick." — Mag. Nat. Hist. vol. v. p. 580, 1832. I have been informed of another instance (which happened in 1836 ?) of two eagles, that after fighting for some time in the air, fell to the ground, in a garden near Newtowncunningham in the same county, and were secured. If gallantry be really the cause of such combats, birds about to pair for the first time are probably the disputants, as from the circumstance of a pair frequenting a particular locality, not only in the breeding season, but throughout the year, it would seem that the species is monogamous, or pairs for life.
 * Footnote 1 Excepting eaglets, the gamekeeper had never seen any but white-tailed, or adult,

the tail pure white,) examined by me, have presented considerable difference in this respect, and, though none had this portion of plumage altogether white, yet some were marked so faintly with very pale ash-grey, as to exhibit the appearance of soiled white, which, contrasted with the dark hue of the back and wings, gives from a dis- tance the appearance above described.
 * Footnote 2 The colour of the head and neck in preserved specimens of adult birds, (having

most valuable members of the Scientific and Literary Institutions of Belfast.
 * Footnote 3 Mr. Edmund Getty, Mr. Geo. C. Hyndman, and Mr. John Grattan, three of the

one shilling a head only being given by the proprietor of the Horn for them.
 * Footnote 4 The reward alone could hardly have prompted the destruction of this number, —

Denmark. Man. d'Orn. de l'Eur. part 3, p. 27.
 * Footnote 5  Temminck remarks that this species is common in winter on the shores of

in height, he terms " a mountainous precipice, or craggy cliif impending the sea." These birds " were, on their arrival at Bristol, detained by an officer of excise, upon the plea that there was a duty upon all singing birds ! " — Ornithological Bid. and Supp. The individual from which Pennant drew up his description was taken in Galway.
 * Footnote 6 Montagu obtained two sea eagles from this mountain, which, although 2,796 feet

" feared " (he then wanted eggs) there was but one eagle about the mountains of Mourne, where it is often seen at a particular rock.
 * Footnote 7 Ten years afterwards, in May, 1846, the same keeper reported to me, that he
 * Footnote 8 Mr. Patrick Doran.

uninhabited Bills Rock, which rises above the ocean at the distance of several miles from Achil. To the fishermen visiting the place, this bird was known by the name of Old Brown, in consequence of a belief that a well-known person so called, who had committed some heinous sin, had been changed into the eagle, and doomed to the penance of living on the wild and savage rock. The idea of but one bird being there, probably arose from the circumstance of the rock being but rarely visited, and one individual only seen at such times. A correspondent mentioned in 1841, that a pair of sea eagles inhabited the islet, and from their remarkable light colour, he imagined them to be very old birds.
 * Footnote 9 This gentleman mentioned that an eagle had for some years frequented the

Esq., although relating to another country, bears on some of the preceding points : — " We saw a number of eagles along the coast of Norway, from Trondjeim to the Alten Fiord, in the summei', autumn, and winter of 1843, especially the osprey or sea eagle. Some were shot. They were watchful, and difficult to get at. They eat car- rion : — even the carcass of one of their own species, which we threw overboard, after being skinned, was eaten by them. Sometimes we looked out for eagles hovering over a mountain side, and on going there with our dogs, were sure to find game. We thought them cowardly, as several times we have seen a falcon attack and hunt them well. The falcons would not leave the mountain, notwithstanding our firing, if once they saw grouse on the wing, and several were shot in consequence of their following the same pack of grouse as we did. The eagles always went off on the first fire." The difference between the actions related by Lieut. Reynolds and Mr. Matthews, may, as it seems to me, (taking it for granted that the same species is alluded to,) fairly be attributed to the different circumstances of the localities, and to the indivi- dual character of the birds.
 * Footnote 10 A portion of the following matter communicated by my late friend, Geo. Matthews,

Birds (vol. 3, p. 231), on the sea eagle in Shetland, makes a precisely similar state- ment.
 * Footnote 11 Dr. Laurence Edmonston in a communication to Macgillivray's Hist, of Brit.

very full and interesting account of this species from personal ohservation, and men- tions, that "on a flat islet in a small lake in Harris, one of the Hebrides, a pair of these birds bred for many years, although there are lofty crags in the neighbourhood."
 * Footnote 12 Mr. Macgillivray, in the third volume of his History of British Birds, gives a

Horn Head, &c., in 1845, saw, at Dunfanaghy, a singularly docile pet bird of this species, which had been taken as a nestling the year before in that vicinity. This bird had its liberty in a yard within the village, where it generally remained, but took occasional flights to the opposite side of the bay. It did not molest any of the fowls kept in the same yard, but immediately attacked any strange fowls that made their appearance. It may be added, that this eagle not only permitted, but took pleasure in having its plumage smoothed down by the hand of its owner.
 * Footnote 13 This idea may not 'be wholly imaginary. The party already mentioned as visiting

attempt to molest their enemy, he was told of their having twice done so in the island of Lewis (p. 227). The golden eagle, he observes, is bolder than the sea eagle, and has been known to attack the robbers of its eyrie : two instances are briefly given at p. 213. An article in the Quarterly Review for December, 1845, on Scrope's Days and Nights of Salmon-fishing, contains an excellent account of the habits &c, of the golden eagle. The attack of one of these birds on a boy about to rob an eyrie in Sutherlandshire is authentically given, ^and the adventurer named, who went single-handed to the task. The eagle fixed one talon in his shoulder, and the other in his cheek, but with the aid of his knife, he destroyed the bird, after a very severe combat. In the Wild Sports of the West, p. 107, a graphic account of two eagles — sea eagles, if the locality be correctly described — attacking a person lowered by a rope to their nest, is given as " well authenticated."
 * Footnote 14  Mr. Macgillivray remarks, that, although under such circumstances, they seldom

 * Footnote 15 This bird is noticed under Golden Eagle, p. 12.

 * Footnote 16 Ball

 * Footnote 17 Davis

 * Footnote 18 Poole.

tion of oxygen in the water of the lake. MM. Aug. and Ch. Morren, in their most interesting " Recherches sur la Rubefaction des Eaux et leur Oxygenation par les Ani- malcules et les Algues," state, to quote the words used in noticing their memoir in the Annals of Natural History, vol. xii. p. 207, that " At times they have found the pro- portion (of oxygen) so low as 18, 19, or 20 per cent., and the consequence has been the destruction of the greater part of the fish by asphyxia. On the 18th of June, 1835, (the very time when the fatality was greatest in Lough Derg,) the greater part of the fish in the Maine perished from this cause ; and the same circumstance was ob- served twice in the pond, which first directed the attention of the authors to the subject of the memoir."
 * Footnote 19 This fatality was probably owing to an extraordinary diminution of the propor-

p. 12
 * Footnote 20 The partiality of eagles for the bath is also mentioned under " Golden Eagle,"

known a young bird to eat twenty gurnards (Trigla gurnardus) in a day. An eagle obtained in the Highlands of Scotland by Major Matthews (of Springvale, co. Down), and taken about with his regiment, had the audacity to drive away one of the soldier's wives engaged in washing a dozen of herrings in the river near Fort George, and made a meal of them all.
 * Footnote 21 Fish, however, are in no little request with sea eagles. A correspondent has

thus the blackbird and ring-ouzel (Turdus torquatus) are disliked, while the song thrush (21 ?nusicus) is much relished, and, though it will kill and eat the landrail {Crejc pratensis) and wagtails {Motacilla Yarrellii) when huugry, it is averse to them, and has in some instances been observed to eject them front the stomach. My friend, the Baron De Selys Longchamps, a very distinguished naturalist, has remarked to me with reference to Belgium, where these birds are much used at table, that the song thrush is excellent eating, and the redwing (T. iliacus) is also good ; but that the fieldfare {T. pilaris) is not so, and the blackbird is decidedly bad : — the falcons, the eagles, and the Baron, are therefore all of the same opinion. According to M. Duval-Jouve, blackbirds fatten and acquire an excellent flavour from feeding on the fruit of the myrtle, in Provence. (Zoologist, Oct. 1845, p. 1119.) In the north of Ireland, indeed, these birds are by many persons considered very good, which may be owing to their feeding much on the nutritious mollusca found about the hedges and covers they frequent. all of which Mr. Laugtry had at the same time, were at liberty, they never molested each other.
 * Footnote 22 The peregrine falcon also shows distaste and partiality to birds nearly allied ;
 * Footnote 23 When the golden eagle, sea eagle, peregrine falcon, kite, buzzard, and kestrel,


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Campbell, James (1745-1832)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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Rh Alu-alu, four chĕchéndét of Haramai flax.

Alun, to swim, and at the same time to support some other person or body, as a sinking boat, a loaded raft or the like. The swell of the sea, a wave.

Alun-alun, on open plain or parade ground in front of the dwellings of native official chiefs, or governors of districts, as the Regents, where processions and public ceremonies take place. Two waringin trees are always planted in the centre.

Alur, the beaten path in the forests of wild cattle and Rhinoceroses- a furrow.

Alus, fine in texture or quality, genteel, respectable, clever, cunning.

Ama, father, a refined expression used only when speaking of men of rank.

Amal, ar: pious good works, by which the grace of God is obtained.

Amar, ar: Thing, aflair, business, order, mandate, injunction. Amar allah, the mandate of God.

Amat, very, excessively, Bener amat, very true. Beurat amat, very heavy.

Ambalu, Gum-lac. The ambalu of the Sunda mountains does not give the true gumlac of commerce, which is produced by the Coccus lacca. The Sunda ambalu is nevertheless produced by a small Coccus insect found fastened upon the trees in the same way as books describe the true ambalu of commerce. In Java this ambalu is most frequently found upon the Ficus Procera or Kiara, which in common with all other figs, yields much milky sap, but does not seem to produce the lac which is valuable in commerce. Crawfurd’s Dictionary says the word in Javanese is Tambalu, which would give Tamba C. 222 copper, Baluk or Baluka C. 469, a drug, a perfume, sand, gravel. Thus copper drug, or copper sand. The colours would suggest the copper colour, and the Hindus might have imagined the substance either a drug or formed of sand. Or Tamba-copper, and Luta or Luna, C. 609, a spider, local inflammation produced by the urine or spittle of a spider, from a sort of spider forming the lac. Tamba-luta = Tambalu.

Ambar, ar: amnber; ambergris.

Ambar, a small foetus brought forth at full age of nine months, but unnaturally small; this child always dies, and same of them are dried and preserved as talismans or charms for good luck.


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12 Ambar-ambar, a lot of little instruments to be used about the person, as tweezers, toothpick &c, hung together on a small ring and carried about tied to the corner of a handkerchief.

Ambĕk, passion, will, disposition for exertion. Gedé ambek a man of exertion: often a man who wants more than he is entitled to.

Ambĕkan, to draw the breath, to breathe.

Ambĕn, a belt, the girth of a saddle.

Ambén, the stage or platform before the door of a native house.

Ambĕngan, to have in readiness

Ambĕuh, to scent, to smell, to be aware of an odour.

Amblĕng, abandoned, not cared for, deserted.

Ambon, the island of Amboyna.

Ambrĕg, a united continuous report, as of guns fired off all at once.

Ambu, mother (of a human being) Ambā C 43, a mother. Ambikāwi C. 809 a mother, a wife. Ambuwa C. 44, a wife. (Ambâ, Ambikâ and Ambâlikâ, mother, are Skr. Fr.).

Ami, a designation occurring in ancient Javanese history, as a prefix to the names of men of rank. Raffles vol 2 Page 80 and 88, Ami Luhur, Ami Jaya, derived from Swami C. 783 or Hami, a master, a lord. They were the sons of Déwa Kasuma who had them sent to India to be educated, where they probably obtained the title of Swami, this was early in the 10 Century after Christ. (This is possible; Svâmi, Skr. lord. Fr.).

Amil, ar: a village priest, a petty priest.

Amin, ar: amen! so be it.

Amina, the mother of the prophet Mohammad. In the seventh year of Mohammads life, she took him from Mecca to visit his relations at Medina. They were on their way back to Mecca, when Amina sickened and died at Abwa, half way between the two places, and here she was buried.

Amir ar: a leader, a commander, an emir. Amir-al Muminin or Amir al Mumin, the commander of the faithful, a title of the Caliphs.

Amis, Sweet to the taste, luscious. Diamis an expression used in dying yarn of a red colour when it is put ont into the Sun before applying the Changkudu.

Amis, the inner or juicy bark of trees, as distinct from the onter and dry part.

Amit, to be unwilling, a polite way of excusing oneself, a polite way of asking permission, You must excuse me. Méméh di chokot kudu ngamit heula ka nu bogah, before you take it, you must ask permission from him who owns it. Amit bohong I am unwilling to tell a lie, you must excuse my telling a lie. Amit nibahken binih occurs in a paddy planting Jampé, and means, I entreat permission to scatter out the seed. (Balin. pamit id.).

Ampar, to spread out, to strew with. A layer, a stratum. Ampar samak, to spread ont a mat (to sit or squat down on). Jalan na di ampar karëés, the road was strewed or covered with gravel. Paré sa ampar, a layer of Paddy as lying in store.


text:
The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Glasgow, Ellen Anderson Gholson

GLASGOW, Ellen Anderson Gholson, American novelist: b. Richmond, Va., 22 April 1874. She was educated privately and became prominent as an interpreter of the transition period in the Southern States after the close of the Civil War. Her works include ‘The Descendant’ (1897); ‘Phases of an Inferior Planet’ (1898); ‘The Voice of the People’ (1900); ‘The Freeman and Other Poems’ (1902); ‘The Battleground’ (1902); ‘The Deliverance’ (1904); ‘The Wheel of Life’ (1906); ‘Ancient Law’ (1908); ‘Romance of a Plain Man’ (1909); ‘The Miller of Old Church’ (1911); ‘Virginia’ (1913); ‘Gabriella’ (1916).


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426 Gazette and Country-Journal of April 12, 1815, and the other from the Daily Transcript and Chronicle of October 27, 1845—each of which detailed an appallingly grisly circumstance whose duplication was remarkable. It seems that in both instances the dying person, in 1815 a gentle old lady named Stafford and in 1845 a schoolteacher of middle age named Eleazar Durfee, became transfigured in a horrible way, glaring glassily and attempting to bite the throat of the attending physician. Even more puzzling, though, was the final case which put an end to the renting of the house—a series of anemia deaths preceded by progressive madnesses wherein the patient would craftily attempt the lives of his relatives by incisions in the neck or wrist.

This was in 1860 and 1861, when my uncle had just begun his medical practise; and before leaving for the front he heard much of it from his elder professional colleagues. The really inexplicable thing was the way in which the victims—ignorant people, for the ill-smelling and widely shunned house could now be rented to no others—would babble maledictions in French, a language they could not possibly have studied to any extent. It made one think of poor Rhoby Harris nearly a century before, and so moved my uncle that he commenced collecting historical data on the house after listening, some time subsequent to his return from the war, to the first-hand account of Doctors Chase and Whitmarsh. Indeed, I could see that my uncle had thought deeply on the subject, and that he was glad of my own interest—an open-minded and sympathetic interest which enabled him to discuss with me matters at which others would merely have laughed. His fancy had not gone so far as mine, but he felt that the place was rare in its imaginative potentialities, and worthy of note as an inspiration in the field of the grotesque and macabre.

For my part, I was disposed to take the whole subject with profound seriousness, and began at once not only to review the evidence, but to accumulate as much more as I could. I talked with the elderly Archer Harris, then owner of the house, many times before his death in 1916; and obtained from him and his still surviving maiden sister Alice an authentic corroboration of all the family data my uncle had collected. When, however, I asked them what connection with France or its language the house could have, they confessed themselves as frankly baffled and ignorant as I. Archer knew nothing, and all that Miss Harris could say was that an old allusion her grandfather, Dutee Harris, had heard of might have shed a little light. The old seaman, who had survived his son Welcome's death in battle by two years, had not himself known the legend, but recalled that his earliest nurse, the ancient Maria Robbins, seemed darkly aware of something that might have lent a weird significance to the French raving of Rhoby Harris, which she had so often heard during the last days of that hapless woman. Maria had been at the shunned house from 1769 till the removal of the family in 1783, and had seen Mercy Dexter die. Once she hinted to the child Dutee of a somewhat peculiar circumstance in Mercy's last moments, but he had soon forgotten all about it save that it was something peculiar. The granddaughter, moreover, recalled even this much with difficulty. She and her brother were not so much interested in the house as was Archer's son Carrington, the present owner, with whom I talked after my experience.

exhausted the Harris family of all the information it could furnish, I turned my attention to early town


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Rh records and deeds with a zeal more penetrating than that which my uncle had occasionally shown in the same work. What I wished was a comprehensive history of the site from its very settlement in 1636—or even before, if any Narragansett Indian legend could be unearthed to supply the data. I found, at the start, that the land had been part of the long strip of home lot granted originally to John Throckmorton; one of many similar strips beginning at the Town Street beside the river and extending up over the hill to a line roughly corresponding with the modern Hope Street. The Throckmorton lot had later, of course, been much subdivided; and I became very assiduous in tracing that section through which Back or Benefit Street was later run. It had, as rumor indeed said, been the Throckmorton graveyard; but as I examined the records more carefully, I found that the graves had all been transferred at an early date to the North Burial Ground on the Pawtucket West Road.

Then suddenly I came—by a rare piece of chance, since it was not in the main body of records and might easily have been missed— upon something which aroused my keenest eagerness, fitting in as it did with several of the queerest phases of the affair. It was the record of a lease, in 1697, of a small tract of ground to an Etienne Roulet and wife. At last the French element had appeared—that, and another deeper element of horror which the name conjured up from the darkest recesses of my weird and heterogeneous reading—and I feverishly studied the platting of the locality as it had been before the cutting through and partial straightening of Back Street between 1747 and 1758. I found what I had half expected, that where the shunned house now stood the Roulets had laid out their graveyard behind a one-story and attic cottage, and that no record of any transfer of graves existed. The document, indeed, ended in much confusion; and I was forced to ransack both the Rhode Island Historical Society and Shepley Library before I could find a local door which the name of Etienne Roulet would unlock. In the end I did find something; something of such vague but monstrous import that I set about at once to examine the cellar of the shunned house itself with a new and excited minuteness.

The Roulets, it seemed, had come in 1696 from East Greenwich, down the west shore of Narragansett Bay. They were Huguenots from Canude, and had encountered much opposition before the Providence selectmen allowed them to settle in the town. Unpopularity had dogged them in East Greenwich, whither they had come in 1686, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and rumor said that the cause of dislike extended beyond mere racial and national prejudice, or the land disputes which involved other French settlers with the English in rivalries which not even Governor Andros could quell. But their ardent Protestantism—too ardent, some whispered—and their evident distress when virtually driven from the village down the bay, had moved the sympathy of the town fathers. Here the strangers had been granted a haven; and the swarthy Etienne Roulet, less apt at agriculture than at reading queer books and drawing queer diagrams, was given a clerical post in the warehouse at Pardon Tillinghast's wharf, far south in Town Street. There had, however, been a riot of some sort later on—perhaps forty years later, after old Roulet's death—and no one seemed to hear of the family after that.

For a century and more, it appeared, the Roulets had been well remembered and frequently discussed as vivid


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428 in the quiet life of a New England seaport. Etienne's son Paul, a surly fellow whose erratic conduct had probably provoked the riot which wiped out the family, was particularly a source of speculation; and though Providence never shared the witchcraft panics of her Puritan neighbors, it was freely intimated by old wives that his prayers were neither uttered at the proper time nor directed toward the proper object. All this had undoubtedly formed the basis of the legend known by old Maria Robbins. What relation it had to the French ravings of Rhoby Harris and other inhabitants of the shunned house, imagination or future discovery alone could determine. I wondered how many of those who had known the legends realized that additional link with the terrible which my wider reading had given me; that ominous item in the annals of morbid horror whiichwhich [sic] tells of the creature Jacques Roulet, of Caude, who in 1598 was condemned to death as a demoniac but afterward saved from the stake by the Paris parliament and shut in a madhouse. He had been found covered with blood and shreds of flesh in a wood, shortly after the killing and rending of a boy by a pair of wolves. One wolf was seen to lope away unhurt. Surely a pretty hearthside tale, with a queer significance as to name and place; but I decided that the Providence gossips could not have generally known of it. Had they known, the coincidence of names would have brought some drastic and frightened action—indeed, might not its limited whispering have precipitated the final riot which erased the Roulets from the town?

I now visited the accursed place with increased frequency; studying the unwholesome vegetation of the garden, examining all the walls of the building, and poring over every inch of the earthen cellar floor. Finally, with Carrington Harris's permission, I fitted a key to the disused door opening from the cellar directly upon Benefit Street, preferring to have a more immediate access to the outside world than the dark stairs, ground-floor hall, and front door could give. There, where morbidity lurked most thickly, I searched and poked during long afternoons when the sunlight filtered in through the cobwebbed above-ground windows, and a sense of security glowed from the unlocked door which placed me only a few feet from the placid sidewalk outside. Nothing new rewarded my efforts—only the same depressing mustiness and faint suggestions of noxious odors and nitrous outlines on the floor—and I fancy that many pedestrians must have watched me curiously through the broken panes.

At length, upon a suggestion of my uncle's, I decided to try the spot nocturnally; and one stormy midnight ran the beams of an electric torch over the moldy floor with its uncanny shapes and distorted, half-phosphorescent fungi. The place had dispirited me curiously that evening, and I was almost prepared when I saw—or thought I saw—amidst the whitish deposits a particularly sharp definition of the "huddled form" I had suspected from boyhood. Its clearness was astonishing and unprecedented—and as I watched I seemed to see again the thin, yellowish, shimmering exhalation which had startled me on that rainy afternoon so many years before.

Above the anthropomorphic patch of mold by the fireplace it rose; a subtle, sickish, almost luminous vapor which as it hung trembling in the dampness seemed to develop vague and shocking suggestions of form, gradually trailing off into nebulous decay and passing up into the blackness of the great chimney with a fetor in its wake. It was truly horrible,


text:
The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Slavic Languages

SLAVIC LANGUAGES. The Slavic languages form a separate group of the Indo-European languages and are more nearly related to the Lettish, Lithuanian and Prussian, with which they are frequently mentioned as the Balto-Slavic languages. Their original habitat before the period of migration in the 4th century and the original tongue from which they have sprung are still a subject of speculation. The origin of the word “Slav” which first makes its appearance among Syrian and Byzantine writers some time before the 9th century is equally undetermined. It certainly is not to be derived from slava, “fame” nor from slovo, “word,” as assumed by some Slavic scholars, but must, with greater probability, be connected with the Low Latin sclavus, “slave,” since Spanish Goths and Arabs received the great bulk of their slaves and eunuchs from Russia, and “eunuch” is in Late Greek Kolobos, asklabos.

The first Slavic tongue to be fixed by writing was the one adopted in the 9th century by the proto-apostles Cyril and Methodius, of the neighborhood of Saloniki, in their missionary work in Pannonia and Moravia, but it is still an unsettled question whether this original speech was Bulgarian or of the Moravian variety, hence the multiplicity of names for it, such as “Old Bulgarian, Old Slovenian, Pannonian.” From the fact that it became the liturgical language for all those Slavs who received their Christianity from Constantinople it is also called “Church Slavic.” It contains a considerable number of Germanic words and an exceedingly large number of Greek words in its vocabulary, especially such as refer to religious matters. In grammatical structure it is more primitive than any other Slavic language preserved to us, for it has an aorist in the verb and a dual both in the noun and the verb, and the earliest documents which have come down to us show unmistakably the presence of nasal sounds, now quite lost in all but the Polish and an occasional Bulgarian dialect. On account of these ancient characteristics, Church Slavic is put at the basis of Slavic philology, but it would be a mistake to assume that this Church Slavic is the primitive tongue from which the other Slavic languages are derived. (For the further history of Church Slavic see ).

The Russian literary tongue contains a greater proportion of Church Slavic elements than any other related language, which is the result of the important part the Church Slavic played in Russia as a means for literary expression. The history of the Russian language in modern times is treated separately, but here must be mentioned the fate of the Ruthenian or Little Russian, especially since through the separation of the Ukraine it is likely to gain new importance. It is a distinct group of the Russian dialects, which in the 18th century received literary polish under Kotlyarevski, and since produced the great poet Shevchenko

and the storywriter Kvitka-Ovsyanenko. In the 19th century its literary activity was carried away from the Ukraine, where it had its origin, to Galicia, where at the universities of Lemberg and Czernowitz it was permitted to develop freely. But here it fell under German and Polish influence and almost led to the formation of a separate language, inaccessible to the UkraniansUkrainians [sic], who drew similarly upon the Russian dictionary for its new formations. The Ruthenian papers in the United States, nearly all of them of UkranianUkrainian [sic] origin, write in a curious mixture of Great and Little Russian. Now the formation of the Ukraine may change the aspect of the literary Ruthenian once more. The modern Bulgarian is phonetically very close to the Church Slavic, but grammatically it has departed from it more than any other Slavic language. It has lost practically all declensional forms and thus stands to the others in very much the same relation that English bears to the other Germanic tongues. The oldest document of the Bulgarian vernacular does not go beyond the 14th century, but it was only in the forties of last century that the first grammar of the spoken tongue was written down by an American, Elias Riggs, after which it was used, at first almost exclusively by American missionaries, in the translation of textbooks. Since then it has fallen, for its vocabulary and style, under the influence of the Russian literature.

The Serbo-Croatian language consists of three dialect groups which are distinguished by the word used for “what?” which is respectively shto, cha and kay. The first, considered to be the most elegant, is found in Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina and the Litoral; the second is spoken in northern Dalmatia, on the islands, in Sofia and the adjoining territory of Croatia; while the third is the vernacular of northwestern Croatia. The Greek Catholic Serbians used in the Middle Ages the Church Slavic for literary purposes, but this Church Slavic was permeated by Serbian exactly as it was Russianized in Russia. Only at the end of the 15th century was the spoken dialect of Ragusa and the Litoral used for literary works, and under the influence of the Italian it reached in the 16th century its highest development and that period is known as the golden age of Serbo-Croatian literature. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the kay dialect of Croatia gained predominance. The literary form of the language remained unsettled until the thirties of the 19th century, when Gaj put the shto dialect of Ragusa at the base of his diction and called it Illyric, in order not to offend any one by the choice of a local name. Meanwhile the Serbian, Vuk Karadzich, had been using the spoken Serbian in his writings. At the present time the Serbo-Croatian is divided into the Croatian of the Roman Catholics, written with Latin characters, and the Serbian of the Greek Catholics, written in a variety of the Russian alphabet. The two literary norms differ in a number of dialectic varieties, but there has been a tendency to bring the two together, at least the Serbian schoolbooks print about one-fourth of Croatian matter, and the Croatians give a similar amount to stories of Serbian authors. The Slovenians of Styria, Carinthia, Carniola and northern Istria, nearly all of them Protestants, have

since the 17th century used their variety of the Serbo-Croatian as a separate literary language, and developed a beautiful literary norm, especially in the 19th century under the poet Preshern, out of a dialect of southern Carniola.

Bohemia began to use the spoken language for literary purposes as early as the 12th century, and in the 14th century no other Slavic language could vie with it in wealth of expression. John Hus employed it in his theological discussions, and under the influence of the German church poetry a vast number of hymns were written in Bohemian, especially by the Moravian Brethern. There was also a considerable activity in the poetry of the romantic type, in which it also followed German models. Beginning with the 17th century Bohemian fell into desuetude, but, this time again under the influence of German romanticism, Dobrovsky, the father of Slavic philology, in the beginning of the 19th century resuscitated the older language of the Moravian Brethren and since then it has been used for all literary purposes. Unfortunately Bohemian is in poetry handicapped by its accentuation, because, no matter how long a word may be, its accent, as in the unrelated Hungarian, is always on the first syllable, whereas in Russian, Bulgarian and Serbian it is mobile, but in Serbian there are really four melodic accents, which make the language very harmonious and musical.

In the 19th century the Bohemian dialect of the Slovaks in northern Hungary, for which it is claimed that it is a transitional language between Bohemian and Serbian, evolved a separate literature. The writer was fortunate in procuring in 1901 almost a complete set of this rare and quaint literature, amounting to something like 1,800 numbers, for the Harvard Library.

Slovenian and Slovak appeal to a population of less than 2,000,000 each, which makes their existence precarious. There is, however, another Slavic language, called by the Germans Wendish, and in philology Serbo-Lusatian, spoken in Lusatia by but a few hundred thousand people and yet divided into two distinct literatures differing somewhat in their literary norms, that of the Catholics of upper Lusatia and of the Protestants of lower Lusatia. After the Russian, the Polish is the best-developed literary language of the Slavs. It made its appearance in the 14th century, when it fell under Bohemian influence. Like the Bohemian, and unlike the other Slavic languages, Polish appears fixed in form from the beginning. In its vocalism it resembles French on account of its nasal sounds, and Italian on account of its soft consonantal utterance. Many of the consonants have four shades, which demand the addition of two diacritical marks and the use of z in connection with the Latin alphabet employed by it. The accent is nearly always on the penult, as in Italian. At first the literary form fell under the influence of French and Italian humanism, which led to the introduction of a very large Latin vocabulary, while the proximity to Germany led to the popular adoption of an exceedingly large number of German words. Polish literature had its golden age in the 17th century but it is only in the 19th century that it developed a rich literature, especially in poetry, that is comparable with those of the

other nations of Europe. The closely allied Kashubian Slovinzian and Polabian languages of East Prussia and Pomerania have been studied philologically, but they have not risen to literary forms. See articles on the languages of this group — Polish, Russian, etc.

Bibliography. — The leading philological periodical for the study of the Slavic languages in general is Jagić's Archiv für slavische Philologie, and of late the whole subject of Slavic philology has been treated in the still unfinished work on Slavic philology by Jagić in the Russian language. The ‘Comparative Dictionary of the Slavic Languages’ by Miklosich is not satisfactory, and his large ‘Comparative Grammar’ is now superseded by Vondrák's work. For the study of Church Slavic we fall back on Leskien and Vondrák, but the historical evolution of Church Slavic still needs an investigation. A large number of Russian monographs deals with various aspects of the Russian dialects. The best dictionaries are those of the Academy, barely begun, and Dal's great ‘Dialect Dictionary.’ The White Russian has been studied by Karski, and we have for it a good dictionary by Nosovich. The Little Russian has been similarly studied by Potebnya and Ogonovski, and a large number of other authors. The Bulgarian dialects have been lavishly investigated in a government publication of bulky proportions, especially by Miletich and Tsonev, and the Serbo-Croatian language has since the days of the founder of the science, Vuk Karadzić, been elaborately treated by native and foreign scholars, and of late a Croatian dictionary on a truly grand scale has been published by Broz-Iveković. The most accessible dictionary for foreigners is the ‘Croatian-German and German-Croatian Dictionary’ by Filipović. Similar studies exist for the Slovenian and Janezić's ‘Slovenian-German and German-Slovenian Dictionary’ will be found very useful for the student. Bohemian was early treated by Dobrovsky. Since then there has appeared the excellent historical grammar by Gebauer and his unfortunately unfinished ‘Old-Bohemian Dictionary.’ The most useful dictionary for the foreigner is Jungmann's. The Slovak has not yet enjoyed a careful study, but the Lower Lusatian has both an excellent grammar and dictionary by Mucke, while both dialects are accessible in the similar works by Pfuhl. Even the Kashubian, Slovinzian and Polabian have found careful investigators in Lorentz, Schleicher, Mucke, Mikkola and others. A monumental ‘Polish-German Dictionary,’ by Linde, appeared in the beginning of the 19th century before Grimm had planned his German Dictionary. Within the last few years a still larger dictionary of the literary language and a great dialect dictionary has been published by the Cracow Academy of Sciences. The best historical grammar is that by Kryński.


text:
The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Slavic Mythology

SLAVIC MYTHOLOGY. Of Slavic mythology we cannot obtain a distinct picture, owing to very defective traditions among the peoples of Slav race and perhaps still more because of a great scarcity of records. The early history of this whole race is, in fact, shrouded

in darkness, and we do not even definitely know the time of the first arrival of Slavic tribes in Europe. We do know, it is true, that some of them were heard of as early as the 1st or 2d century of the Christian era, but of their manners and customs, their vernacular and, above all, their creed and worship we know next to nothing at that early time. In some regions of Europe they appear to have preceded the Teutons and to have taken possession of the land, while in others they followed Teutonic tribes, such as the Marcomanni in what is now Bohemia, the Vandals on the Baltic, the Goths and Gepidæ after these had started off on their conquering migrations toward the West and South which were at last to end in the destruction of the Roman Empire. So far as indications go, the bulk of the progenitors of the Slavic populations of to-day seem to have reached and in a manner settled on European soil by the 5th and 6th centuries of our era. But in their shifting occupation of districts and lands, but vague recollections of the mythology of their race have remained. Of the Southern Slavs (Serbians, Bulgarians, Croatians), the Poles and the Czechs we do not even possess the names of their early gods. Generally speaking, the Slavic creed consisted in a worship of the forces of nature. We find dim reminiscences of a “heaven-god,” Svarog (the Vedic Varuna), who apparently was acknowledged more or less by all Slavs. We encounter in the scant records a solar deity, Dazhbog, paid honors to by other tribes under the name of Khors. Fire was worshipped as Ogon (Vedic Agni) and the wind-god as Stribog. With the Northeastern Slavs the chief deity was Perun*, the god of thunder and lightning, the Vedic Parjayna, the Teutonic Donar or Thor. The Western Slavs again along the Baltic coast, such as the Obotriti, the Vinds or Wends, etc., paid homage to a god Radegast or Radegost, also named Sviatovit or Svantevit, the three-headed and trebly-gifted god Triglaff, of whose images and devotional service detailed descriptions have been given by ancient writers. These Western Slavs, too, had temples and sacrificial altars, as well as priests, but this does not seem to have been the case with the Slavs of the East. Of inferior gods, on the other hand, or semi-divine beings there still linger memories among all Slavs, such as of the Rusalkas and Vilas (Volos, Veles), wood nymphs and spirits haunting the forests, springs, pastures and lakes, of Kupalo and Garilo, fertilizers of the earth, representatives of the summer sun. The Western Slavs first accepted Christianity through the Greek monks Cyril and Methodius. Some writers tell of a species of dualism, of a ceaseless struggle between darkness and light, in which the Slavs put faith. But this legend seems to have been more owing to Christian influences. Of the “white” and “black” god, Bjelbog and Czernebog, said to have been believed in by the Slavs inhabiting the tract between Oder and Elbe, we know nothing reliable. But that nearly all Slavs put faith in the field and house spirits, including also the Royeniczas and Soyeniczas (goddesses of birth and fate), the Domowyje and Leshiye, the Babayaga of the Russian, is attested sufficiently.

Bibliography. — Afanasieff, A. P., ‘Poet.

Naturansch. der Slawen’ (3 vols., Moscow 1865-69); Jagich, W., ‘Archiv für slaw. Philologie’ (Vol. IV, Vienna); Hanusz, V., ‘Die Wissenschaft des slav. Mythus’ (Lemberg 1842); Krek, X. F., ‘Einleitung in die slavische Literaturgesch.’ (2d ed., Graz 1887); Palacky, F., ‘Geschichte von Böhmen’ (3d ed., 5 vols., Prague 1876-78).


text: Author:Wolf von Schierbrand

title: Author:Wolf von Schierbrand


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The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Slavonia

SLAVONIA, a former territory of Austria-Hungary which, with Croatia, constituted the provinces of Croatia and Slavonia, forming part of the possessions of the Hungarian crown. It is bounded on the northeast by Hungary, on the south by Bosnia and part of Serbia and on the west by Croatia and has an area of 3,640 square miles, exclusive of that portion of the military frontier lying between Slavonia and Croatia, which may be regarded as falling within its limits. A branch of the Carniolan Alps, entering Slavonia from Croatia on the west, traverses it throughout its whole length, forming the watershed between the Drave on the north and the Save to the south. The forests are very rich and cover the upper mountain sides on whose lower slopes cultivation is actively carried on. The valleys are extremely fertile; but there are large swamps created by the frequent inundations of the river, rendering the climate in parts extremely unhealthy. Agriculture is the most important occupation, the principal products being grain, fruit, flax, hemp and wine, and the leading exports, grain, wine, fruit, cattle, lumber and the celebrated Slivovitz brandy, distilled from plums. The inhabitants are chiefly Serbs and profess for the greater part the Roman Catholic and the Greek Orthodox faith. The chief town is Eszek. With Croatia it had a national Landtag or Diet and sent representatives to the Hungarian Parliament. The population of Croatia and Slavonia is about 2,600,000.

As part of Illyricum, Slavonia was acquired by the Romans in the reign of Augustus and was incorporated with the province of Pannonia. From the Byzantines it was wrested in the 5th and 6th centuries by the invading Slavic tribes, from which time dates its close union with the country to the west which came to be known as Croatia. The united state was ruled by princes of the Hungarian royal house till the early part of the 16th century, when Slavonia was overrun by the Turks. They were driven out at the end of the following century and the territory was organized on a military basis for the defense of the Austrian frontier. Part of Slavonia was placed under civil administration in 1745, but the military frontier was not done away with until 1873. The two provinces had autonomy for home affairs, public instruction and justice. At the Jugoslav Convention held in Geneva in November 1918 a national government representing all Jugoslav provinces was constituted and Slavonia became a part of the new state. See ; .


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The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Slavonic Enoch

SLAVONIC ENOCH. See .


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The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Slavs

SLAVS, slạvz, the general designation for a group of peoples inhabiting eastern and

Europe and forming one of the most important branches of the Indo-European family of nations. The name is derived from the native term Slovenia, the origin of which is obscure, some connecting is with slovo, word, speech, and others with slava, glory. In support of the former etymology is the fact that the Slavic term for foreigner is nientsy, dumb, marking the differentiation between those whose speech was intelligible to the Slav ear, that is, the Slavs themselves, and those who made use of an incomprehensible tongue. The connection between Slav and slave, though supported by the analogy of servus and Serb, is nevertheless merely fanciful. The Slavic group comprises the following nationalities: Russians (including the Great Russians, the Little Russians, or Ruthenians, and the White Russians), Bulgarians, Serbo-Croatians, Slovenians, Czechs (comprising the Bohemians, the Moravians and the Slovaks), Wends or Sorbs (consisting of the inhabitants of Upper and Lower Lusatia, and Poles with the allied Kashubes). The Polabians, a Slavic people formerly living on the Elbe, have been extinct since the middle of the 18th century. The early history of the Slavs is veiled in obscurity, and only an approximate idea as to their original home is to be obtained. In Pliny and Tacitus the name Venedæ (whence the modern Wenden) appears as the designation of a group of non-Germanic tribes living to the northeast of the Carpathian Mountains and extending to the shores of the Baltic and the lake country of the Finns. Ptolemy in the 2d century of our era gives a description of the peoples residing between the Vistula and the Don which would undoubtedly tend to connect a part at least of these tribes with the Slav family. Roughly the home of the Slavs in the first centuries of the Christian era may be given as extending from the Vistula and the Carpathians northeastward to the headwaters of the Volga and along that stream to its junction with the Oka, and southeastward to the Bug and Dnieper, comprising thus the southwestern third of the present Russia. South and southeast of the Baltic, however, were the Lithaunians, a non-Slavic people, though nearest to the Slavs of all Indo-European stocks. In the 6th century Procopius and Jardanes speak of two great Slavic nations, the Sclaveni and the Antes, as established on the left bank of the Danube and to the north. From this it would seem that in the 3d or 4th century the Slav peoples began to migrate from their homes southward, and westward, under pressure probably of the Baltic tribes to the north. In the 5th century they took possession of the country between the Vistula and the Elbe, left unoccupied by the southward migration of the Germanic Burgundians, Goths, Suevi, etc. Slav tribes entered Bohemia and Moravia about the same time, while others advanced from beyond the Carpathians and made themselves masters of western Hungary, whence they passed into Styria, Carinthia and Camiola. At the beginning of the 7th century the Slavs on the Danube crossed into Mœsia and overran Thracia and Macedonia. At the same time Serbs and Croats made their homes in the ancient Illyricum and Dalmatia. A second great wave of Slav migration, starting from the original home north of the Carpathians, spread east and north,

pushing the Finns before them. Under Scandinavian rulers these tribes became the nucleus of the Russian nation. Of this wide area of conquest they have lost in the process of time the regions of the Oder and the Elbe, Upper Austria and part of Carinthia and Styria, of all of which they were deprived by the Germans; large parts of Transylvania and Hungary which fell to Rumanians and Magyars; and parts of the regions south of the Danube which later passed to the Greeks and the Turks.

The ancient Slavs were almost exclusively an agricultural people, averse to all war, and living in complete tribal independence under a fully developed patriarchal system which at a later time became blended with a communal form of government. They were the latest of all the European peoples to enter the sphere of modern civilization, their religion and their literature being, as compared with the other nations, of recent date. The eastern branch of the Slavs received its civilization and religion from Byzantium, the western Slavs from Rome. Christianity made rapid headway among them in spite of the fact that they seem to have possessed a well developed nature-cult about which, however, we possess no definite information. Our materials are limited to the names of various deities worshipped among the northern Slavs, while as to the mythology of the southern branches of the race even such data is wanting. Among the gods of the Russian Slavs were Pernu, identified by some with Thór, the northern god of Thunder, Dazbig (the day god), Wolos, Stribog and others. Svintovint or Sviatovit was the great god of the Baltic Slavs (Rügen), and some who maintain that along with their idol-worship the Slavs possessed a belief in a supreme God would assign to Svintovint that rôle. Grimm erects Svintovint, Pernu and a god named Radegast into a trinity with functions corresponding to the classic Jupiter, Vulcan and Mercury respectively. Other deities worshipped by the Slavs were Prava, the god of justice; Rugevit, of war; Triglaw; Lado and Lada, divinities of order and love; Dievana (Diana), goddess of the woods, and Prija, the Scandinavian Freya. Among the Silesian Slavs the principles of light and darkness were typified by the Bielobog and the Chornobog, the white god and the black god. The mythology of the Slavs was rich in deities of a lower order, in nymphs, naiads and mountain sprites, in goddesses of birth and fate, divinities of the hearth and the field, in evil demons and vampires. The forms of the Slavonic deities recall to mind those of India. Svintovint was represented as four-headed, Pernu as four-faced, etc. There is some testimony to a belief entertained by some of the Slavs in the immortality of the soul and a resurrection beyond the grave. Their principal celebrations were the kobiada, a feast held at the beginning of the year, when an interchange of presents was customary; the kupalo, a feast that took place in honor of the sun at the time of the summer solstice; and the trizna, celebrated in honor of the dead. The functions of priest and ruler were combined in the same person.

From available data it is quite a hopeless task to fix, with any degree of certainty, the number of Slavs in Europe. Official statistics — where issued — are not always reliable, and

independent authorities differ widely, even on the question of how many Slav languages there are. It was not until the first quarter of the 19th century that any serious attempt was made to estimate the Slav populations. Schaffarik in 1826 arrived at a total of 55,270,000; in 1842 he made it 78,000,000; basing his calculations on these figures and those of the Russian historian Pypine, Prof. Louis Leger of the Institut de France struck a total of 79,550,000 in 1868. Zarianko's Russian geography (1891) gave a total of 101,724,000, while Schrader's atlas showed only 97,000,000. M. Niederle, a Bohemian authority, estimated 139,000,000 in 1900, and reduced it to 138,500,000 in 1905. In 1907 a distinguished Russian scholar, M. Florinsky, arrived at 147,146,000 and calculated that, the annual birthrate of the Slav race being 1.7 per cent, it would increase by 2,500,000 per year and would in consequence number 186,000,000 in 1915 and 200,000,000 in 1920. Taking such figures as are available, according — in each case — to the last census, we find the Slav population of Russia given as 92,089,733; Austria, 16,959,095; Hungary, 5,380,190; Serbia (subjects only) 2,890,602; Bulgaria, 3,203,810; Montenegro about 500,000: a grand total of 121,023,430. Most of these statistics, however, were compiled in 1910 and do not include the German Poles nor the other Slavs residing in Germany, Rumania, Turkey, Great Britain, etc. Only one census has been taken in Russia — in 1897. During 1913 and 1914 there were 1,079,677 emigrants to the United States from countries in Europe having predominant Slav populations, mainly Russia and Austria-Hungary, while between 1911 and 1915 Canada received 144,792 from those countries, and numbers also went to South America. In the United States alone there are nearly 4,000,000 Poles, over 2,000,000 Czechs and Slovaks, and some 2,000,000 Jugo or Southern Slavs, besides Russians, Serbs, etc. The European War and the Balkan wars of 1912-13 exacted a heavy toll of Slav blood. The great losses of Russia on the battlefields and in the anarchy following the revolution; the casualties among the Slavs of the ill-fated Austro-Hungarian armies; and the practical extermination of Serbia, besides Bulgarian and Montenegrin losses, must inevitably exert a seriously weakening influence upon the Slav race and disturb the value of statistics. These factors should be borne in mind with regard to the following table, collected in 1918:

Languages. — The Slavic tongues have been the subject of much controversy and varied classification. On this point, as on that of vital statistics, several authorities — themselves Slavs — differ. Josef Dobrovsky, a learned Czech (d. 1829), counted nine living languages and as many Slav nations in 1822; Schaffarik in 1842 found six languages and 13 dialects; Sreznevsky in 1843 discovered nine and Schleicher in 1865 counted eight. Jagitch made it eight in 1898, while Miklositch and Florinsky

(the latter in 1907) came back to nine. According to more recent research, however, considering the numerous separatist tendencies, the number of Slavic languages has been raised from 11 to 14, without reckoning those which are extinct. According to Niederle there are (1) the Russian group, regarded as two nations, the Great Russians and the Little Russians, the latter including the southern Russians, Ukrainians and Ruthenes; (2) the Polish group; (3) the Lusatian-Serb group, divided into High and Low Lusatian; (4) the Czech group in Bohemia and Moravia, from which the Slovaks of Hungary are more or less divided according to political views; (5) the Slovene group, without separatist tendencies; (6) the Serbo-Croatic group, representing Serbs and Croats; and (7) the solid Bulgarian group, homogeneous except for the Macedonian Slavs, of which some lean to the Bulgarians, some to the Serbs, and others who, until 1913, claimed a separate or Macedonian nationality. Another method of grouping is as follows: (1) Bulgarian; (2) Serbo-Croatic; (3) Slovenian (2 and 3 sometimes being given as one group); (4) Russian, including Great Russian, Little Russian and White Russian; (5) Czechish with the closely related Slovak; (6) Sorb or Wendish; and (7) Polish, Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian and Russian have sometimes been classified into a Southeastern Slav group as against a Western group consisting of all the others. To the latter group should be added the extinct Polabian. The oldest of the Slavic tongues is the old Church Slavic or Old Bulgarian, which is still the ritual language of the Greek Orthodox Church in Russia, Bulgaria and Serbia. The Slavic languages are marked by a richness of vowel sounds and sibilants and a high degree of inflection, which in the noun possesses seven cases, and in the verb, in spite of a restricted number of tenses, a large number of modal and effective auxiliaries rendering possible the finest distinctions of meaning. The so-called Cyrillic alphabet is used in the Russian, Bulgarian and Serbian, but the Old Church Slavic makes use also of the Glagolitic alphabet (q.v.). The Polish, Croatian, Czech, Slovenian and Sorb employ the Roman characters.

Slavic Music — Sentiment, which forms so prominent a trait in the Slav character, renders the members of that race peculiarly subject to the influence of music. In Russia the origins are found in the folk-songs which were greatly influenced by the music of the Church. In the 17th century western influences entered the country and especially the Italian, which lasted well into the 19th century, when we have the use of a national school with the appearance of Glinka (q.v.). The prevailing characteristic of Russian music, whether classic or popular, is an all pervading tone of melancholy which has found its fullest expression, perhaps, in the works of Tschaikowsky. Polish music, in many respects resembling the Russian, differs from the latter in a greater vivacity of movement and spirit. The Bohemian is the third important national school of Slavic music and one which in recent years has surpassed the Polish in productivity and held its own with the Russian. For the leading names in Russian music see in addition to those already mentioned,

. For Poland see ; . For Bohemia see .

Panslavism. — This name was originally given to the agitation carried on by a great party in Russia with the object of uniting the Slav peoples of Europe under Russian rule or influence. The movement originated about 1830, when the Polish revolution aroused Slavic national consciousness; it received increased strength from the second Polish revolt in 1863. Congresses of Slav representatives from the different European countries were held at Prague in 1848 and Moscow in 1867. Outside of Russia the ideals of Panslavism were favorably received by the Slavs in Bohemia, Silesia and Croatia-Slavonia, where the members of that race felt their national existence threatened by the repressive policy of the government, Austrian, Hungarian or German as the case might be. Panslavism was largely responsible for the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, when Russia entered the lists as the champion of the Balkan Slavs who suffered under the tyranny of Turkish rule. Russia defeated the Turks with the assistance of Rumania (non-Slav); Bulgaria, Serbia and Montenegro, Slav nations. Though the Berlin Congress demolished the Treaty of San Stefano, the four nations were made practically independent of Turkey, and Russia became the recognized protector of the Balkan Slavs. It must be added, however, that this “big brotherly” policy was not unconnected with the old Russian ideal of paving the road to Constantinople. Moreover, this Balkan policy of Russia ran counter to the interests of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, also a great Slav power. This antagonism rendered impossible any rapprochement between Russia and Germany, the latter being Austria's ally. In this may be recognized the seeds of the European War. Nothing short of an absolute renunciation by Russia of her Panslav policy in the Balkans could remove the possibility of an ultimate rupture with Austria. In course of time, Panslavism broke out in a direction that was perhaps not anticipated by Russia. As the Balkan states grew stronger under the stimulus of national consciousness, fostered by the creation of national armies and more or less democratic institutions, they gradually realized their ability to shape their own destinies. While fully willing to accept all the advantages which the protection of Russia offered, they were not prepared to fall under Russian dominion. Stambuloff, in Bulgaria, pursued a strong anti-Russian policy, and the Serbs cast longing eyes upon the vision of an independent Greater Serbia including the Austrian provinces of Bosnia-Herzegovina and their nationals in Macedonia — then still Turkish territory. Not improbably, they also counted on the inclusion of Croatia, Slavonia and the Dalmatian coast line after the long-prophesied break-up of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Bulgaria likewise had designs on Macedonia; Bohemia clamored for her ancient rights as a kingdom, and the Poles sought the restoration of their country, partitioned between Russia, Germany and Austria — an ambition at all times rigorously suppressed by those three powers. Russia stood to

lose comparatively little by an all-round fulfilment of these national aspirations; to Austria-Hungary it meant a dissolution of the monarchy. Hence the general principle may be accepted that Austro-Russian rivalry, plus the conflicting aims of Austria and Serbia, provided fully one-half of the direct causes of the European War, and that Germany contributed the other moiety by utilizing this antagonism to further her own ambitions. The situation was thus summarized by President Wilson on 14 June 1917: “The war was begun by the military masters of Germany, who proved to be also the masters of Austria-Hungary. . . . The demands made by Austria upon Serbia were a mere single step in a plan which compassed Europe and Asia. . . . It contemplated binding together. . . Czechs, Magyars, Croats, Serbs, Rumanians. . . Bohemia. . . the stout little commonwealths of the Balkans. . . . These people do not wish to be united. . . . They ardently desired to direct their own affairs, would be satisfied only by undisputed independence.”

By the summer of 1918 the Panslav movement had attained gigantic proportions. Though entirely diverted from its original aims of unification into a revolutionary scheme of independent separatism, based on nationality, no more appropriate title could be applied to it. A powerful impetus to the cause was the official sympathy extended to its representatives in France, America, Italy and Great Britain. On 22 Jan. 1917 President Wilson declared in favor of an autonomous Poland; the Czecho-Slovak and Jugo-Slav agitation in the Austrian Parliament spread throughout the monarchy and was enthusiastically supported by their nationals scattered throughout the allied countries. Already at the beginning of the war thousands of Austrian Slavs — whole regiments — had gone over to the Russians. Large numbers escaped from the country and joined the Allies in France and Italy. On 6 Jan. 1918 a congress of Czech deputies reasserted their claims at Prague; in April a similar gathering was held at Rome; disorders spread throughout Bohemia and other districts of the monarchy leading to a state of siege around Prague and the establishment of martial law among the Slovenes and Slovaks. On 4 May 1918 the Austrian Reichsrat was abruptly closed by the emperor. Anti-German demonstrations were severely suppressed and thousands interned. Barracks and public buildings were set on fire and German newspaper offices sacked. A Slovene regiment mutinied and killed its German officers. Czecho-Slovak regiments fought in the Italian army and in Russia against the Bolsheviki. In New York, Kossovo Day was commemorated on 16 June 1918, attended by thousands of American Slavs.

title: The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Slavs


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The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Sleep

SLEEP, a state of rest for both body and mind, during which there is partial abeyance of volition and consciousness, with a relaxed condition of the body and a lessened activity of certain of the vital functions. The muscles do less work in the way of voluntary contractions, and there is, therefore, a diminution in this feature of their tonicity; the respirations are less frequent and rhythmical; occasionally there is a long expiratory pause; the output of carbon dioxide is diminished more than the consumption of oxygen; the pulse is less

the secretions are partially suspended, and the pupils of the eyes are contracted. The whole body is in a state of increased vagus tonus, vagotonia.

Sleep is probably due to a rhythmical cycle habit of millions of years of evolution and is chiefly a tropism reaction to light and temperature impressions. It has been biologically developed by reason of its value as a resting period for less active energy transformation. All parts of the body require such rest as sleep affords, and share, directly or indirectly, in its benefits, for functional activity without periods of rest results in an undue destruction of the tissues and an excess of poisonous products. The essence of the sleep state is functional rest and nutritive repair. Though the brain is in repose, it nevertheless is in function during sleep just as much as all the rest of the body. This activity is registered in dream activity, some of which remain in consciousness. Generally, the more the body can be withdrawn from outside influences the more readily is refreshing sleep obtained. Sometimes pain assists to this end. For example, a man is worried with business cares and has not slept well of late. One evening he has a severe toothache which demands his entire attention. As the pain is relieved he drops off into a quiet sleep and forgets his troubles in unconsciousness.

The amount of sleep needed by different persons varies with age and condition. The greater part of infancy is generally passed in slumber, which is more profound than that of adults. In middle life from six to eight hours' sleep a day is necessary, though it is reported of Frederick the Great and Napoleon that they slept but three or four hours daily. Old persons frequently require seven or more hours' sleep, though some live healthfully with but six. Occupation, race, sex, climate and habit have to do with the amount of sleep required. Brain workers, as a class, take less sleep than laborers. Sleep is sounder and longer in cold climates and among northern races. Women usually take more sleep than men. The influence of habit is noticeable when the demand for sleep comes at a definite time, or in the case of those accustomed to sleep amid noisy surroundings, and who cannot readily sleep in a quiet resting-place.

The disorders of sleep may be classified as follows: (1) Absence of sleep — insomnia, vigilance; (2) imperfect or partial sleep — dreams, sleep-drunkenness, or somnolentia, night-terrors and nightmare; (3) perverted or artificial sleep — somnambulism, hypnotism, mesmerism, trance, somnium; (4) excessive or frequent drowsiness and sleep — morbid drowsiness or somnolence, paroxysmal sleep, epileptic sleeping attacks, trance-sleep, cams, cataphora, lethargy — sleeping-sickness of Africa.

The causes of disordered sleep are many, such as brain affections, blood-poisoning, pain, indigestible food, discomfort, produced by undue cold or heat, mental excitement or worry, overfatigue, febrile conditions, sleeping in an uneasy position or with the head too high or too low, too little outdoor exercise, sleeping amid unaccustomed surroundings. The treatment of disturbed sleep sometimes taxes the art of the physician. Mental repose, bodily comfort, a sufficient degree of warmth, a certain amount of fatigue, combined with perfect quietude, are

essential. An evening walk, a cup of hot milk or cocoa, or a weak stimulant just before retiring, massage, counting and verbal repetitions are aids in producing sleep. Hypnotic medicines should be avoided if possible. Brisk exercise in the open air, every day if convenient, to the point of tiring, is a good sleep-producer. Consult Powell, L. P., ‘Art of Natural Sleep’ (New York 1908); Bruce, H. A., ‘Sleep and Sleeplessness’ (Boston 1915).

title: The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Sleep


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Talk:Progress and Poverty (George)/Chapter I

"There is distress where large standing armies are maintained, but there is also distress where the standing armies are nominal" - what is the meaning of "nominal" in this context? Shouldn't it read "minimal"? --Erel Segal (talk) 05:18, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
 * "Nominal" is the correct reading. In this context it means "insignificantly small or trifling". Beeswaxcandle (talk) 06:57, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

"Evidently, beneath all such things as these, from local circumstances but are in some way or another engendered by progress itself." - This sentence looks fragmented, can someone verify that it's correct? --Erel Segal (talk) 05:22, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Agree that this sentence doesn't make sense. This text was a copy/paste from an unknown source and I note that this version is a condensed edition. I think it would be better to replace the work with this one. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 06:57, 25 June 2012 (UTC)


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User talk:Kandar

— billinghurst  sDrewth  05:42, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

title: User talk:Kandar


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Page:A dictionary of the Sunda language of Java.djvu/34

Rh Ampĕg, to abound in, full or enough of- to heart’s content.

Ampél in Javanese is a variety of Bambu. Ampél as a place in the town of Sourabaya connected with the introduction of Mohammedanism by a certain Sunan Ampél who is buried there.

Ampĕlĕm, a variety of the mango fruit. The first syllable of this word seems to be of Sanscrit origin. Amba C. 43. a mango. Pelem in Sunda is of good savour, fine taste, but to give it this interpretation, we should have to associate a pure Sanscrit with a pure Polynesian word, which is against the common run of associations. In Crawfurd’s dissertation to his Malay grammar at page 99 he has ventured to state that Mampalam a mango "is the Sanscrit. Mahâ-pala, the great fruit through the Talinga (13)." .

Ampihan, to put by, to keep, to take care of, to have in one’s keeping.

AmplasAmplas, the ficus politaria. A tree the rough leaves of which are much used to polish wood or horn.

Ampo, said of animals, particularly buffaloes and deer, wich lick the places where salt has been deposited, or are in the habit of licking the ground or rocks which contain some saline matter. Batu Ampo, is ampo stone which is found in many parts of Java and eaten by the natives. It is either a rock in a high state of decomposition, from having undergone a sort of caries in situ, or, in other cases, may be an aggregation of minute animal exuviae.

Ampok, a plate of Silver, or of any other metal, worn by naked children to cover their nudities.

Amprok, in conjunction with, joined to.

Amprokkěn, to shove up close to, to put together.

Ampun, forgiveness, pardon. Ménta ampun to ask pardon.

Amuk, to fight furiously, to attack indiscriminately, to smash and destroy. Said of any animal unmanageable from rage. This is the word which has given origin to the expression of "running a muck," as it is also Malay. Imah na di amuk, he pulled the house to pieces. Jelema sakitu loba na di amuk ku sorangan nana, such a large number of people, he ran a muck amongst singlehanded. Si amuk one of the three heirloom guns on Java the amuck-maker. See Guntur Gěni and Nyai Stomi.

An, is a particle of much and extensive use; its place is as a suffix to the word to which it relates, and is very extensively used with Pa as a prefix. Pa-gawé- an work, from gawé to work. Pa-mabok-an, a drunkard, from mabok, drunk. It often gives to substantives and adjectives a verbal form, as anak, a child, anakan to have a child, to bring forth. Hadé, good, Hadéan, to make good, to mend; Batur a companion, Baturan, to keep company with, to accompany; Imah, a house, Imahan, to put up a house on any