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flowers together, and thefe have often no perianfhium. The fpatha is of very different texture, and confiftence, in dif- ferent plants.
Spatha, among the Romans, is fometimes taken for a broad fword, fometimes for a fort of ladle ufed by cooksj and alfo for a furgeon's inftrument. Pitifc. in voc.
SPATHALIUM, among the Romans, an ornament which the women wore about their hands, not unlike the coral ones of the moderns. Pitifc. in voc.
SPATHESTER, the name of a chirurgical inftrument ufed to draw the prepuce over the glands.
SPATHINUS, in natural hiftory, a name given by the Greeks to the frag, or deer, when in its fecund year. ' In the firft it was called nebrus; in the third year dicratus ; and after this cerajles as long as it lived.
SPATHOMELE, a word ufed by fome to exprefs the fpatula, and by apothecaries and furgeons in mixing and fpreading ointments and plafters.
SPATLING-po/>/>y, a name given to the common field-lychnis, from the white froth found on it in the fpring. See the article Froth-^)/.
,SPATULA,(C)rf.)— The ufe of the fpatula is to deprefs the tongue, in order to examine the itate of the tonfils, uvula, and fauces, when they are affected with any diforders.- It is alfo ufed to fufpend the tongue, when the framum is to be divided ; for which purpofe it has a fifl'ure at its extremity, and fhould rather be made of filver than of any other metal. Thefe fpatuU are made of different fhapes. Vid. Hei/ler's Surg. Introd. Ce&. 36. and Plate I. P. <i R.
SPAX, a name given by fome authors to the common taenia, a fmall fifh of the anguilliform-kind, frequent on the fhores of Italy. Rondelet. de Pifc. p. 1 1 2.
SPEAR, in the manege. The feather of a horfe, called the Jiroke of the fpear, is a mark in the neck, or near the fhoul- der of fome Barbs, and fome Turky and Spanifh horfes, reprefenting the blow or cut of a fpear in thofe places, with fome refemblance of a fear. This feather is an infallible fign of a good horfe.
Spe "tce.-hand, or fword-hand of a horfeman, is his right hand.
Spe AR-foat, of a horfe, is the far-foot behind. See the article Far, Appendix.
SPEARWORT, theEnglifh name of the ranunculus fiammeus. See the article Ranunculus.
This is with us generally efteemed a poifon, but the Scotch ufe it as a medicine. They beat it, and fqueeze out the juice, which they take as a purge, drinking a little melted butter or oil before and after it, to prevent its taking the fkin off from the throat. It operates very violently, but with their robuft conftitutions it does very well. They ufe it alfo externally in cafes of pain in the head, or any other part of the body. They bruife the leaves to a fort of pafte, and apply them to the part ; they foon raife a blifter, and a large quantity of water is difcharged, after which the pain goes off. This is a fhort way of Wittering, and anfwers as fafely, and as well as ours by the cantha- rides : but it is a wonder that people, who fee this quality ia the plant, fhould dare to take it into their mouths and ftomachs.
SPECIES [Cycl.)— It has been generally allowed to be true, that no fpecies of animal, once created, ever became ex- . tinfi, or ever will be : but though this may be true in ge- neral, yet it does not follow, but that a whole fpecies of animals may be extiniSt in fome particular place by varipur accidents.
This feems to have been the cafe with the great moofe- deer, now found only in America, which was certainly once an inhabitant of Ireland, though now extinct there, and that fo long ago, that no hiftorian mentions its ever having lived there.
There are many animals, as well as trees and plants, com mon to America and to Ireland. The horns of the moofe deer are found with the bones of the head, and fometimes with other bones, in immenfe quantities, to this day, in that kingdom, buried in ftrata of marl at great depths. The writers of foffils, who are fond of refolving every thing to the effects of the deluge, affirm, that thefe horns were brought from fome other country by the waters of the flood ; but they feem to be as improbable things to be brought by the fea, and left uninjured in other countries, as can well be conceived ; and they are too little altered, and too well pre- ferved, to fuffer an unprejudiced obferver to agree to this account.
We find numerous inftances of the furface of the earth al- tering, in length of time, in many parts of this kingdom ; and it is no forced judgment to determine, that the foil, in which thefe horns are now found buried, was once the fur- face of the country, though other fubftances have been fmce piled upon it, and made a furface over it. The creatures, whofe horns we find buried, probably lived on the ifiand when this was the furface ; and as they live in herds, fo dy- ing in herds, or at leaft feveral together, their bodies were left in heaps upon the furface, where they were afterwards confirmed and wafted, only the tough fubftance of the horns preferving them, they have remained, and being covered
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With the fupcradded ftrata, are now found in this faffiie ftate. In countenance of this opinion it is to be pbfervedj that the deer-kind in general are fubjedt to contapious dif- eafes; which often carry off great numbers of them. The rein-deer in Lapland are fometimes almoft all deirroyed by thefe difeafes ; and it is not impoflible that fuch a diftempcr* raging longer and more violently than ordinary, might de- ftroy the whole /pedes in this place. The inhabitants' mifr,ht alfo promote the deftrucYion by their hunting; for we fee by the deft ruction of the wolves, once fo frequent in tins' kingdom, that this caufe alone may be fufficient to extirpate^ or extinguifh the race of an animal in one kingdom; Phil. Tranf. N°2j. p. 501.
What the accurate Artedi has given, as the definition of the /pedes in ichthyology, is not confined to fifties alone, but* with proper regulations, may be made the bafis of real difti nations of /pedes in all other natural bodies. Every fifhj which differs from all the other fifties of the fame genus in fome external part, whether that difference be in excefs or defect;, in number or in proportion, or even in colour, pro- vided that the difference be fixed and invariable^ is properly to be called a diftinct /pedes. Artedi\ Ichthyolog. The fpecific differences of fifties are to be drawn from thefe circumflances ; but it is not to be fuppofed that every /pedes- differs in all of them, fometimes only one, fometimes morej occafion the variation. See Specific names. If any one fifh, in regard to all the others of the fame ge- nus, is found to be poffefled of fome external part which they all want ; as for example, if it have cirri, tubercles, in the fh ape of horns on the head, fpines or prickles in the head, or on any other part of the body, the fiih is then to be efteemed a diftincl /pedes. If one fifh differs from the others of the fame genus in the number of any parts, as fins, fpines, or tubercles, it is then alfo a diftinct: /pedes. If one fifh differs from another in the proportion of any effential part, as in the having longer jaws, longer teeth, or the like, it is alfo to be efteemed a truly different Jpedesi If one fifh differs from another in the figure of fome effential part, as of the fnout, the back, the teeth, or the tail, or the linear laterales, it is to be efteemed a diRiriSt /pedes. If one fifh differs from another of the fame genus in the excefs of parts, having fome part that is deficient in the other; or if in the number, proportion, or figure of fome of the ef- fential parts ; the distinction will be the more evident as the greater number of parts differ, and xhe/pedes will eafily be found to be truly diftinct. Jrtetli's Ichthyolog. If a full differs from all the others of the fame genus in co- lour, while it has no other diftinction from fome of them$ then it is to be examined whether the colour is always per- manent and invariable; if not, there is no diftinction of /pedes to be founded upon it; but if it be, it remains -a matter of doubt whether it may be efteemed a fpecific dif- ference, colour being one of the leaft effential characters, and, according to Linnaeus, what no diftinction of Jpedes can be founded on. As the colour of fifties is very apt t& vary, even in the fame Jpedes, and to be fometimes more intenfe, fometimes more remifs, this is to be confidered iri a due light, before any judgment is formed on it ; and it is to be obferved whether .the colour, that makes the differences be wholly of another nature, or only different in degreei The perca Jiuviatilis of Bellonius will be fometimes pale yellow, fometimes deeper, and fometimes even black, ac- cording as the water is clear or more muddy ; and thus what- ever differences are only in degree of the fame colour, or in the changes from that degree toward black, without the in- termixture of any other colour, are not to be at all depended upon. Linn&i Fund. Bot. 27.
We are not to expect the fame precifion in the differences of the truly diftinct /pedes of all the genera of fifties : in fome they are found {0 obvious, and fo great, that the firft look di- Itinguifhes them ; but there are fqme other genera, in which the feveral /pedes are fo alike one to the other, in the ef- fential characters, that though there is a general external face, in which they all vary, yet it is not eafy to fay iri what tnediftinction between /pedes and/pedes confifts. Thus, among the feveral /pedes of falmons, the number and figure of the effential parts is the fame in allj and their proportion, in regard to the bulk of the fifh, differs but little; the jaws are in fome indeed wider, and in others longer, but it is not much. The colours and fpots vary indeed greatly, in the different /pedes, but then it muff be allowed, that they alfo differ in the feveral individuals of the fame /pedes: fo that, upon the whole, there is no genus of fifh, in which the /pedes are fo difficultly diftinguifhed. The very bones of the fins, which differ in the feveral /pedes of the fame (renus, in almoft all other fifties, are the fame in thefe. The number of the vertebra? is almoft the only mark in which the real difference of thefe conufrs : this is a trqublefome thing to count, but in the boiled fiih it is b'eft done, and is always certain, the number being the fame in all of the fame /pedes, of whatever fize, and the feveral /pedes all dif- fering as to this number. Great care is to be taken in the counting of thefe, and by that means the fmalleft fifh and the largeft will be found to have the fame number, if of the
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