THERMOTROPISM. 221 THESETTM. the sepals and petals in the opening and closing of the tulip flowers. Many leaves show this re- sponse also, e.g. those of rhododendron. All these reactions, however, are nut examples of true thermotropism, but are rather comparable to those responses of leaves to variations in light intensity which are embraced by the terms nycti- tropic movements and parahcliotrnpism. THEROIGNE DE MERICOURT, ta'rwan'y' de ma're'kUor' (1762-1817). A prominent figure during the French Revolution. She was born at Marcourt near Li6ge. Her true name was Anne Jos&phe Terwagne. In 1789 she went to Paris, and entered upon a life of shame. Know- ing all the leaders of the Revolution, she became an enthusiastic Republican and the commander of the mobs of women that played such a con- spicuous part in the dramatic days of the Revo- lution. Armed with sabre and pistol, this Ama- zon of Liberty, as she was called, led her femi- nine battalions against the Bastille July 14, 1780, to Versailles on October 5-6 of the same year, and after her return from an Austrian prison was prominent during the disturbances on .June 20 and August 10, 1792. In May, 1793, while de- fending the Girondist Brissot, her lover, she was seized, stripped, and whipped by a mob of mad- dened women. She became insane from this treatment, and spent the rest of her life in La Salpi'triere. THEROMORPHA (Neo-Lat. nom. pi., from Gk. e-qp, thCr, wild beast -+- iJjopip-ii, morphe, form) . A name applied to several widely dissimi- lar groups of fossil reptiles which possess certain common characters of skull, vertebr*. limb- girdles, and digital formula. Another ordinal name, Anomodontia, is often used synonymously with Theromorpha. The theromorphs, together with the turtles and plesiosaurs, compose the great rep- tilian division Si/napsida. (Osborn) , characterized by certain mammal-like features of the skull and the mammalian digital formula. All known theroniorph remains have been found in the rocks of Permian and Triassic age. They were for the most part animals of rather heavy build, adapted to land life and sluggish habit, though one group appears to have been marine. The following sub- orders are commonly recognized: (1) Cotylosauria or Pareiasauria. A group of reptiles having a solid cranial roof with a large pineal foramen, and usually with teeth on the vomer, pterygoid, and palatine bones. It is prob- able that these forms stand closest to the ances- tral Stegocephalia or armored Amphibia. The 6KULL OF A THERionoNT {Galesaiirvs). best-known example is Pareiafsaiirtis:. from the Karoo beds of South Africa, a heavily built land animal, eight feet long. (2) Theriodontia. A group which closely resembles mammals in the differentiation of tiie teeth into incisors, canines, and molars, and in certain features of the skull. Most genera have a distinctly car- nivorous dentition, but a few, the Gompho- dontia, have crushing molars. Nearly all the known theriodonts are from the South African Trias. Cynognathus, in which the skull is re- markably dog-like, eqvialed the black bear in size and general proportions. Jlany zoologists be- lieve that manunals liave been derived from theriodonts. (3) Dicynodontia. Land rc])tiles from the Trias of Scotland and South Africa, known chiefly from the skull, which is greatly modified, having the teeth entirely wanting, as in Udenodon, or reduced to a single pair of large tusks in the upper jaw, as in Uioynodon and Gor- donia. (4) Placodontia. Named from the large, knob-like crushing teeth. Placodus, the first named genus from the marine Trias of Germany, was long known only from these teeth. The genus Placochelys is known to have had a carapace com- posed of a mosaic of small plates. The view held by some paleontologists that placodonts are ancestral to turtles is untenable. THEESIT:i6S, ther-sl't^z (Lat.. from Gk. Gep<r(Ti;5). In the Iliad, the ugliest and most im- pudent talker among the Greeks assembled be- fore Troy. He is represented as reviling Aga- memnon and Achilles, and is beaten by Odysseus for his insolence. Later writers said h^ was a son of Agrios, brother of Oineus, and was slain by Achilles, whom he had mocked after the death of Penthesilea. THESAURUS. See Dictionaky. THESE'UM (Lat., from Gk. e7)ff£<ov, The- seion, building sacred to Theseus, from Qrjcevs, Theseus, Theseus). An herodn or sanctu.ary of the hero Theseus (q.v.). The most celebrated one was that at Athens, which seems to have stood near the centre of the city, to the northwest of the Acropolis, and not far from the Stoa of Attains. Built about B.C. 473, when Cimon brought the reputed bones of Theseus from the island of Scyros to Athens, it was decorated by Polygnotus and Micon with paintings represent- ing Theseus's descent into the sea to Amphitrite, his battle with the Amazons, and the battle of the Centaurs and the Lapithae. It was an im- portant sanctuary, and the sacred precinct in which it stood was an asylum for fugitive slaves, or those who were oppressed. Here, too, the tliesmotliette drew lots for the choice of tlie archons. The name is commonly applied to the best preserved temple in Greece, which stands on a low hill (Colonos Agoraios) to the west of the ancient Agora of Athens, though the true The- seum miist have been on the east. The building is a Doric hexastyle peripteros with thirteen columns on the side, and owes its preservation to its transformation in early Christian days to a church of Saint George. Its present name rests only on an anonymous description of Athens from the end of the fifteenth century, and is directly opposed to all the ancient testimony. The correct name of the building is still uncer; tain. It has been identified with the temple of Arcs, of Hercules in Melite, of Apollo Patroos, and of Hephtestus and Athena Ergane : the last being the most plausible. It is certainly a work of the Periclean age, and probably somewhat later than the Parthenon, though on this point good authorities difTer. The exterior of the building has been comparatively little harmed by the course of time, but the interior has been remod-
