later he discovered the islands that now bear the name of South Georgia, and there the bird was again found—in both localities frequenting the rocky shores. On his third voyage, while seeking some land reported to have been found by Kerguelen, Cook in December 1776 reached the cluster of desolate islands now generally known by the name of the French explorer, and here, among many other kinds of birds, was a Sheathbill, which for a long while no one suspected to be otherwise than specifically identical with that of the western Antarctic Ocean; but, as will be seen, its distinctness has been subsequently admitted.
The Sheathbill, so soon as it was brought to the notice of naturalists, was recognized as belonging to a genus hitherto unknown, and J. R. Forster in 1788 (Enchiridion, p. 37) conferred upon it, from its snowy plumage, the name Chionis, which has most properly received general acceptance, though in the same year the compiler Gmelin termed the genus Vaginalis, as a rendering of Pennant's English name, and the species alba. It has thus become the Chionis alba of ornithology. It is about the size of and has much the aspect of a Pigeon;[1] its plumage is pure white, its bill somewhat yellow at the base, passing into pale pink towards the tip. Round the eyes the skin is bare, and beset with cream-coloured papillae, while the legs are bluish-grey. The second or eastern species, first discriminated by G. Hartlaub (Rev. zoologique, 1841, p. 5; 1842, p. 402, pl. 2)[2] as C. minor, is smaller in size, with plumage just as white, but having the bill and bare skin of the face black and the legs much darker. The form of the bill's “sheath” in the two species is also quite different, for in C. alba it is almost level throughout, while in C. minor it rises in front like the pommel of a saddle. The western and larger species gathers its food, consisting chiefly of sea-weeds and shellfish, on rocks at low water; but it is also known to eat birds' eggs. As to the flavour of its flesh, some assert that it is wholly uneatable, and others that it is palatable. Though most abundant as a shorebird, it is frequently met with far out at sea, and has once been shot in Ireland. It is not uncommon on the Falkland Isles, where it breeds. C. minor of Kerguelen Land, Prince Edward Island, Marion Island and the Crozets, is smaller, with pinkish feet. The eggs of both species, though of peculiar appearance, bear an unmistakable likeness to those of oyster-catchers, while occasionally exhibiting a resemblance to those of the tropic-birds.
The systematic position of the sheathbills has been the subject of much hesitation, but they are now placed in a special family, Chionidae, amongst Charadriiform birds (see Birds), not far from the curious little group of “seed-snipes” of the genera Thinocorys and Attagis, which are peculiar to certain localities in S. America and its islands. (A. N.)
SHEBOYGAN, a city and the county seat of Sheboygan county, Wisconsin, U.S.A., on the W. shore of Lake Michigan at the mouth of the Sheboygan river, about 52 m. N. of Milwaukee. Pop. (1910 census) 26,398. The population is largely of German descent, and two German newspapers are published; many Greeks settled here after 1895. Sheboygan is served by the Chicago & North-Western railway, by interurban electric lines and by a steam-boat line (the Goodrich Transportation Co.). The city N. of the river and the southern half of the part S. of the river are built on a plateau 20–40 ft. above the lake level. Along the river is the factory district. The principal public buildings are a fine Federal building in which are housed the post office and the office of the internal revenue; a Carnegie library, the Sheboygan County Court House, an opera house, St Nicholas Hospital and a county insane asylum. Included in the public school system is a school for deaf children, partly supported by the state. The city has a good harbour and is an important distributing point for coal and salt. A rich agricultural region, devoted largely to dairying, extends to the N., S. and W., and large quantities of cheese are exported. Among the city's other manufactures are furniture, particularly chairs (for which the city is noted), toys, machinery, bee hives, gloves, knit goods, brick, carriages, wagons, excelsior, tanned leather, shoes, enamel ware, canned vegetables (especially peas), beer, flour, pianos and plumbing supplies. The total value of the factory product in 1905 was $10,086,648, 38.1% representing furniture; and 56.7% of the whole number of factory wage-earners were employed in the furniture factories. A trading post at the mouth of the Sheboygan river was established about 1820 and was maintained for about fourteen years; in 1834 a saw-mill was built at the first rapids of the river, about 2 m. from its mouth, and during the next three years many settlers came and a great city was platted on paper. Sheboygan was incorporated as a village in 1846, and was first chartered as a city in 1853. Several miles from Sheboygan Falls (pop. in 1905, 1411), a village about 5 m. W. of Sheboygan and S.W. of Plymouth (pop. in 1905, 2764), the Spring Farms Association, a Fourierite community of ten families, farmed successfully thirty acres of land from 1845 until 1848, when lack of interest in the experiment brought about a dissolution by mutual agreement.
SHECHEM (mod. Nāblus), an ancient town of Palestine, S.E. of Samaria, which first appears in history as the place where Jacob and his family settled for a while (Gen. xxxiii. 18; cf. John iv. 12). It was occupied then by Hivites (Gen. xxxiv. 2), and a tragedy took place in connexion with the chieftain's violation of Jacob's daughter Dinah. It was set apart as a city of refuge (Jos. xx. 7) and was occupied' by the Kohathite Levites in the tribe of Ephraim (xxi. 21). Here, between Ebal and Gerizim, Joshua made his last speech to the elders of the Israelites (Jos. xxiv. 1). The mother of Abimelech the son of Gideon was a Shechemite, and Shechem was the centre of his short-lived kingdom (Jud. viii. 31, ix.). Here Rehoboam made the foolish speech which kindled the revolt of the N. kingdom (1 Kings xii. 1). after which it was for a time the headquarters of Jeroboam (1 Kings xii. 25).
Shechem was evidently a holy place in remote antiquity. The “oak” under which Jacob hid his teraphim (Gen. xxxv. 4) was doubtless a sacred tree, as there the images (which it was not seemly to bring on a pilgrimage to Beth-el) would be safe. The god of the Canaanite city was Baal-Berith: his temple was destroyed when Abimelech quelled the rising of his fickle subjects (Jud. ix. 4, 46). A great standing stone under an oak-tree here was traditionally associated with Joshua's last speech (Jos. xxiv. 26). During the latter part of the Hebrew monarchy we hear nothing of Shechem, no doubt on account of the commanding importance of the neighbouring city of Samaria. It no doubt owed its subsequent development to the destruction of Samaria and the rise in the district surrounding of the Samaritan nation founded on the colonists settled by Sargon and Assurbani-pal. To Josephus it was “the new city” by the inhabitants called Mabortha (B. J., IV. viii. 1), but the official name Nepalis or Flavia Neapolis, so called to commemorate its restoration by Vespasian (Titus Flavius Vespasianus), soon became universal, and is still preserved in the modern name Nāblus—a signal exception to the general rule that the place-names of Palestine, whenever disturbed by foreign influence, usually revert in time to the old Semitic nomenclature.
There was a bishopric at Neapolis during the Byzantine period, and an attack made by the Samaritans on the bishop (Pentecost, A.D. 474) was punished by the emperor Zeno, who gave Gerizim to the Christians. It was captured by the crusaders under Tancred soon after the conquest of Jerusalem (1099), they held it till 1184, when they lost it to Saladin. The principal mosque of the town is a church of the crusaders converted to Mohammedan worship. Towards the end of the 18th century it was the headquarters of the turbulent sheikh Kasim el-Ahmad. In 1834 the soldiers of Ibrahim Pasha pillaged it.
Nāblus is now the chief town of a subdivision of the province of Beirut. It lies in the valley between Ebal and Gerizim, on the main caravan route from Jerusalem northward. The situation
- ↑ In the Falkland Isles it is called the “Kelp-Pigeon,” and by some of the earlier French navigators the “Pigeon blanc antarctique.” The cognate species of Kerguelen Land is named by the sealers “Sore-eyed Pigeon,” from its prominent fleshy orbits, as well as “Paddy-bird”—the last doubtless from its white plumage calling to mind that of some of the smaller Egrets, so-called by the English in India and elsewhere.
- ↑ Lesson (loc. cit.) cites a brief but correct indication of this species as observed by Lesquin (Lycée armoricain, x. 36) on Crozet Island, and, not suspecting it to be distinct, was at a loss to reconcile the discrepancies of the latter's description with that given of the other species by earlier authors.
(Man. d'ornithologie, ii. 343); but for all practical purposes we certainly owe its discovery to the naturalists of Cook's second voyage. By some error, probably of transcription, New Zealand, instead of New-Year Island, appears in many works as the place of its discovery, while not a few writers have added thereto New Holland. Hitherto there is no real evidence of the occurrence of a Sheathbill in the waters of Australia or New Zealand.
