BIRDSALL. 109 BIRGE. Philadelphia, Pa. In 1898 he was appointed president of Swarthmore College (Swarlhmors, Pa.). BIKDS'EYE LIME'STONE. A limestone at the base of tlie Trenton serie-. in Xew York State, so called from the white 'eyes.' cross- sections of crystallize, corals of the genus Tetra- diiim. that appear on the surface of the stone. The rock is usually dove-colored, finegrained limestone, which has in some cases, where free from the 'eyes,' been used for a secondary grade of lithographic stone. The maximum thickness of the formation is thirty feet, and it is exposed on the tlanks of the Adirondack Mountains of New York, and has been doubtfully recognized in Kentucky. Its characteristic fossil in New York is Bathyurus extans, a trilobite. The name 'Birdseye Limestone' has. been replaced by the geographic term 'Lo^wille Limestone,' which refers to the to-n of Lor-ille. X. Y.. in the vicinity of which the formation is well developed. See ORnoviciAN. BIRD"S-FOOT (Ornifhopus). A genus of plants of the natural order Leguniinosse.suborder Papilionacea?. deriving both its popular and its botanical name from the resemblance of the curved pods to birds' claws. The leaves are pin- nate, with a terminal leaflet. One species, Ornithopus perpusHhis, is a native of Great Brit- ain, growing on dry, sandy, or gravelly soils — a small plant of little importance, the flowers of which are white, striated with red. Ornilhopus saliiiis is an important forage plant. See Seb- RADELLA. BIRDS-FOOT CLOVER. See Lores. BIRDS' NESTS. See Xidificatiox. BIRDS' NESTS, Edible. See Swift. BIRDS OF AMERICA, The. A monumental work by John .James Audubon (1827-30), pub- lished at a cost of -SIOO.OOO and sold at $1000 a copy. BIRDS OF PASSAGE. Five collections of poems, or 'Flights,' by H. W. Longfellow (1863- 1878). BIRD-SPIDER, or Bird-Catchixg Spidee. A name given to some of the largest spiders, be- longing to the family Theraphosidte. Jlost of them are natives of tropical and subtropical America. The best known is Mi/riale or .Iricu- larin aiiculuria of Brazil, known there as Aran- ha caranjuejira, or 'crab-spider.' It is nearly two inches long, very hairj-, and almost entirely black : its feet, when stretched out, occupy a surface of nearly a foot in diameter. The hooks of its mandibles are strong, conical, and very black. This great spider forms a tube-shai)ed burrow in sandy soil, widening toward the mouth, sometimes 18 inches deep, and lined with a fine white semi-transparent silken tissue, like muslin, at the bottom of which the silken nidus of eggs is loosely placed. Here the females sit peering out of the trumpet-shaped entrance most of the time, day and night. They are timid, gen- tle in disposition, and do not bite their captors. So debris is ever found about their burrows to indicate their food. In fact, their prey is not known, nor their manner of taking it, which ap- parently is never by searching for it or chasing. "We must confess," says the eminent specialist, the Rev. F. O. P. Cambridge (J'roc. Xoiil. .Soc. of London, 1890, p. 717), "that we do not know the otaple diet. . . . Though I was out night after night, and though I watched, on several occasions, the whole night through, the tunnels of twenty and upward of the sand-burrowing 'mygale,' yet not once could I detect a spider in the act of seizing her prey or even venturing be- yond tile entrance of her burrow." BIRD-TICK. See Forest-Fly. BIRD'WOOD. Sir George Chrlstopheb MoLKswoRTll (1832 — ). An English physician and botanist, born in Belgaum, Bombay. He studied at the L^niversity of Edinburgh, and was in 1854 appointed to the medical staff of the Bombay Establishment of the East India Com- pany. From 1857 to 1869 he was connected with the Grant Medical College of Bombav' as profes- sor successively of anatomy and physiology, and botany and materia medica. He was also chiefly instrumental in establishing in Bombay the Vic- toria and Albert Museum and the Victoria Gar- dens. In 1871-99 he was special assistant in the revenue, statistics, and commerce department of the India Office. He was a learned student of Indian botany. He published in 1862 a Cata- logue of the Economic Vegetahle Products of the Bombay Presidency (1868), and identified the frankincense-tree (Transactions of the Linnwan Society, Vol. XXVII.). His other works in- clude: The Industrial Arts of India (1888); The Aryan Flora and Fauna (in Max Muller's Biography of Words, 1888) : Report on the Cul- tivation of Spanish Chestnuts (1892) ; and The First Letter-Book of the (English) East India Company (1895). BIREJIK, be'ra-jek', or BIR, ber (anciently, Birtha. fcirtress, stronghold). A town of Asiatic Turkey, in the Vilayet of Aleppo, on the east bank of the Euphrates, at the head of navi- gation (Map: Turkey in Asia, H 4). The town is surrounded by a strong wall flanked with towers; its streets are narrow but clean; it has several mosques with tall minarets, a cara- vansary, a bazar, and a ruined citadel and cas- tle. Travelers -and caravans from Aleppo to Diarbekr, Bagdad, Persia, etc., cross the Eu- phrates at this point. Population (estimated), 8000. Bir. which signifies 'well.' is a prefix to the names of several smaller towns in Arabia. BIRET'TA. See Costlme, Ecclesiastical. BIRGE, birj, Edward AsAHEL (1851 — ). An American naturalist. He was born in Troy. X. Y.. and was educated at Williams College aiid at Harvard University. He was appointed pro- fessor of natural history and zoiilogy at the Uni- versity of Wisconsin in 1879; dean of the Col- lege of Letters and Sciences in 1801, and was act- ing president of the universitv from 1900 to 1901. In 1894 he became director of tlie Geologi- cal and Xatural History Survey of Wisconsin. He has written numerous papers on zoology, and has edited the revision of Prof. James Orion's Comparative Zoiilogy (1882). BIRGE, Henry Warner (1825-88). An American soldier, born in Hartford. Conn. At the opening of the Civil War he organized the first State regiment of three-vcars troops— the Fourth Connecticut Volunteers — in which he was appointed major. After ser^•ice in Maryland and Virginia, he was connnissioned colonel of the Thirteenth Connecticut infantry regiment in 1861, and in 1862 was placed in command of the
