separation of the cream. The operation of churning causes the rupture of the oil sacs, and by the coalescence of the fat so liberated butter is formed. Details regarding churning and the preparation of butter generally will be found under Dairy and Dairy Farming.
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| Plant of Ranunculus bulbosus, showing determinate inflorescence. |
BUTTERCUP, a name applied to several species of the genus Ranunculus (q.v.), characterized by their deeply-cut leaves and yellow, broadly cup-shaped flowers. Ranunculus acris and R. bulbosus are erect, hairy meadow plants, the latter having the stem swollen at the base, and distinguished also by the furrowed flower-stalks and the often smaller flowers with reflexed, not spreading, sepals. R. repens, common on waste ground, produces long runners by means of which it rapidly covers the ground. The plants are native in the north temperate to arctic zones of the Old World, and have been introduced in America.
BUTTERFIELD, DANIEL (1831–1901), American soldier, was born in Utica, New York. He graduated at Union College in 1849, and when the Civil War broke out he became colonel of the 12th New York militia regiment. On the 14th of May 1861 he was transferred to the regular army as a lieutenant-colonel, and in September he was made a brigadier-general U.S.V. He served in Virginia in 1861 and in the Peninsular campaign of 1862, and was wounded at Games’ Mill. He took part in the campaign of second Bull Run (August 1862), and in November became major-general U.S.V. and in July 1863 colonel U.S.A. At Fredericksburg he commanded the V. corps, in which he had served since its formation. After General Hooker succeeded Burnside, Butterfield was appointed chief of staff, Army of the Potomac, and in this capacity he served in the Chancellorsville and Gettysburg campaigns. Not being on good terms with General Meade he left the staff, and was soon afterwards sent as chief of staff to Hooker, with the XI. and XII. corps (later combined as the XX.) to Tennessee, and took part in the battle of Chattanooga (1863), and the Atlanta campaign of the following year, when he commanded a division of the XX. corps. His services were recognized by the brevets of brigadier-general and major-general in the regular army. He resigned in 1870, and for the rest of his life was engaged in civil and commercial pursuits. In 1862 he wrote a manual of Camp and Outpost Duty (New York, 1862). General Butterfield died at Cold Spring, N.Y., on the 17th of July 1901.
A Biographical Memorial, by his widow, was published in 1904.
BUTTERFIELD, WILLIAM (1814–1900), English architect, was born in London, and educated for his profession at Worcester, where he laid the foundations of his knowledge of Gothic architecture. He settled in London and became prominent in connexion with the Cambridge Camden Society, and its work in the improvement of church furniture and art. His first important building was St Augustine’s, Canterbury (1845), and his reputation was made by All Saints’, Margaret Street, London (1859), followed by St Alban’s, Holborn (1863), the new part of Merton College, Oxford (1864), Keble College, Oxford (1875), and many houses and ecclesiastical buildings. He also did much work as a restorer, which has been adversely criticized. He was a keen churchman and intimately associated with the English church revival. He had somewhat original views as to colour in architecture, which led to rather garish results, his view being that any combination of the natural colours of the materials was permissible. His private life was retiring, and he died unmarried on the 23rd of February 1900.
BUTTERFLY and MOTH (the former from “butter” and “fly,” an old term of uncertain origin, possibly from the nature of the excrement, or the yellow colour of some particular species; the latter akin to O. Eng. mod, an earth-worm), the common English names applied respectively to the two groups of insects forming the scientific order Lepidoptera (q.v.).
BUTTER-NUT, the product of Caryocar nuciferum, a native of tropical South America. The large nuts, known also as saowari or suwarow nuts, are the hard stone of the fruit and contain an oily nutritious seed. The genus Caryocar contains ten species, in tropical South America, some of which form large trees affording a very durable wood, useful for shipbuilding.
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| A, leaf of Butterwort (Pinguicula vulgaris) with left margin inflected over a row of small flies. (After Darwin.) B, glands from surface of leaf by which the sticky liquid is secreted and by means of which the products of digestion are absorbed. |
BUTTERWORT, the popular name of a small insectivorous plant, Pinguicula vulgaris, which grows in wet, boggy land. It is a herb with a rosette of fleshy, oblong leaves, 1 to 3 in. long, appressed to the ground, of a pale colour and with a sticky surface. Small insects settle on the leaves and are caught in the viscid excretion. This, like the excretion of the sundew and other insectivorous plants, contains a digestive ferment (or enzyme) which renders the nitrogenous substances of the body of the insect soluble, and capable of absorption by the leaf. In this way the plant obtains nitrogenous food by means of its leaves. The leaves bear two sets of glands, the larger borne on usually unicellular pedicels, the smaller almost sessile (fig. B). When a fly is captured, the viscid excretion becomes strongly acid and the naturally incurved margins of the leaf curve still further inwards, rendering contact between the insect and the leaf-surface more complete. The plant is widely distributed in the north temperate zone, extending into the arctic zone.
BUTTERY (from O. Fr. boterie, Late Lat. botaria, a place where liquor is stored, from butta, a cask), a place for storing wine; later, with a confusion with “butter,” a pantry or storeroom for food; especially, at colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, the place where food other than meat, especially bread and butter, ale and wines, &c., are kept.
BUTTMANN, PHILIPP KARL (1764–1829), German philologist, was born at Frankfort-on-Main in 1764. He was educated in his native town and at the university of Göttingen. In 1789 he obtained an appointment in the library at Berlin, and for some years he edited Speners Journal. In 1796 he became professor at the Joachimsthal Gymnasium in Berlin, a post which he held for twelve years. In 1806 he was admitted to the Academy of Sciences, and in 1811 was made secretary of the Historico-Philological Section. He died in 1829. Buttmann’s writings gave a great impetus to the scientific study of the Greek language. His Griechische Grammatik (1792) went through many editions, and was translated into English. His Lexilogus, a valuable study on some words of difficulty occurring principally in the poems of Homer and Hesiod, was published in 1818–1825, and was translated into English. Buttmann’s other works were Ausführliche griechische Sprachlehre (2 vols., 1819–1827); Mythologus, a collection of essays (1828–1829); and editions of some classical authors, the most important being Demosthenes in Midiam (1823) and the continuation of Spalding’s Quintilian.
