are found almost every where within the tropics; and in their natural state they live on fruits and seeds, though, when tame, they will eat flesh, and even fish. In the East and West Indies they are very common, and in such warm climates are very brisk and lively; here, however, they lose much of their vigor. They seldom make nests, but breed like owls in hollow trees: they lay two eggs. At particular times they fly in very large troops, but still they keep two and two together. This genus consists of infinite variety, not so much owing to mixture of species. Mr. Latham increased the genus from forty-seven to 163; and, since the time he wrote his Index, at least thirty more have been discovered. They are very generally divided into three kinds: 1. The larger, which are as big as a moderate fowl, called macaos and cocketoons; these have very long tails. 2. The middle-sized ones, commonly called parrots, which have short tails, and are a little larger than a pigeon. And, 3. The small ones, which are called paroquets, and have long tails, and are not larger than a lark or blackbird.

1. P. ararauna, the blue and yellow macaw, is blue above, and yellow below, and the cheeks are naked, with feathery lines. It is about the same size with the last, and inhabits Jamaica, Guiana, Brasil, and Surinam.

2. P. aurora, the yellow amazon, is about twelve inches long, of a green color, with blue wing quills, and a white front; its orbits are snowy. It inhabits Mexico or Brasil, but in all probability the latter, from the one which Salerne saw, and which pronounced Portuguese

words.

3. P. Guineensis, the yellow lory, is about ten inches long, and is an inhabitant of Guinea. The bill is of a black color; the cere, the throat, and space about the eyes, are white; above the eye there is a patch of yellow, and the rest of the head and neck is crimson. The breast is yellow, wing coverts green, and the quills are blue, edged with yellow. Under the wings, belly, thighs, vent, and to the under part of the tail, the color is white, which last is tipped with red; the legs are dusky, and the claws black.

4. P. macao, the red and blue macao, is red, except the wing quills, which above are blue, below red: the particular feathers are variegated with blue and green: the cheeks are naked and wrinkled. It is about two feet seven inches and a half long, and about the size of a capon. It inhabits Brasil, Guiana, and other parts of South America. It was formerly very common in St. Domingo, but is now rarely fourd there. It generally lives in moist woods. does not in general learn to speak, and its voice is particularly rough and disagreeable. The flesh is hard, black, and unsavory, but makes good soup, and is much used by the inhabitants of Cayenne and other places. This species, in common with other parrots, is subject to fits when tamed.

5. P. pullarius, red-headed Guinea paroquet, or Guinea sparrow, is about five inches and a half long. It inhabits Guinea, and is found in Ethiopia, the East Indies, and the island of Java, and sometimes in Surinam. It is green, with a red front, fulvous tail, black bar, and

cinereous orbits. The male of this species is peculiarly affectionate to the female.

6. P. severus, the Brasilian green macaw, is black, with a greenish splendor: the bill and eyes are reddish, and the legs are yellow. It is about one foot and five inches long, and is common in Jamaica, Guiana, and Brasil. It is, however, comparatively rare; but is extremely beautiful, and of a very amiable and sociable temper when familiar and acquainted; but it can neither bear strangers nor rivals; its voice is not strong, nor does it articulate very distinctly the word ara.

PSOAS MUSCLE, in anatomy. See ANATOMY. PSOKV, a government of European Russia, between those of Livonia and Smolensko. Its superficial extent is about 22,000 square miles; and the population about 700,000, almost all of Russ origin, and members of the Greek church. It is divided into eight circles or districts. The surface is level, and clayey or sandy, but tolerably fertile, producing flax and hemp, which, along with the timber of its forests, are exported to Narva and St. Petersburgh. The manufactures are limited to the weaving of linen, and the preparation of leather. The climate is healthy, but cold. Pskov is watered by several rivers, and contains a large lake called the lake of Pskov.

PSKOV, or PLESKOV, a considerable trading town and archbishop's see of European Russia, the capital of the above government, is situated at the confluence of the Pskov River and the Velikaja. It is small, but contains a kremlin or citadel; a middle town and greater town; all distinct and surrounded by an earthen mound. Inhabitants 7000. Leather is the only manufacture.

PSOPHIA, in ornithology, a genus belonging to the order of gallinæ. The bill is moderate; the upper mandible convex; the nostrils oblong, sunk, and pervious; the tongue cartilaginous, flat, and fringed at the end; and the legs are naked a little above the knees. The toes are three before and one behind; the last of which is small with a round protuberance beneath it, which is at a little distance from the ground. Latham only enumerates two species.

1. P. crepitans, the gold-breasted trumpeter. Its head and breast are smooth and shining green. By the Spaniards of Maynas it is called trompetero, and by the French at Cayenne agami, under which last Buffon describes it. It inhabits various parts of South America, Brasil, Guiana, Surinam, &c., but it is most plentiful in the Amazons country. It is about twenty inches long, being about the size of a large fowl, and lays eggs rather larger, of a blue green color. It is met with in the Caribee islands, where it is called a pheasant, and its flesh is reckoned as good as that of a pheasant. The most characteristic and remarkable property of these birds consists in the wonderful noise they make, particularly when urged by the keepers of the menagerie. Another very remarkable circumstance is, that they follow people through the streets, though perfect strangers. It is difficult to get rid of them; for, if you enter a house, they will wait your return, and again join you,

though often after an interval of three hours. 'I have sometimes,' says M. de la Borde, 'betaken myself to my heels, but they ran faster, and always got before me; and, when I stopped, they stopped also. I know one,' continues he, 'which invariably follows all the strangers who enter his master's house, accompanies them into the garden, takes as many turns as they do, and attends them back again.'

2. P. undulata, the undulated trumpeter, is about the size of a goose. The upper part. of the body is of a pale reddish brown color, beautifully undulated with black. The head is adorned with a dependent crest. On each side of the neck, beneath the ears, begins a list of black, widening as it descends, and meeting on the lower part before, where the feathers become greatly elongated, and hang loosely down. The under parts are generally white, the legs are of a dusky blue color like the bill. It is a native of Africa; Latham's specimen came from Tripoli. PSORALEA, in botany, a genus of the decandria order, and diadelphia class of plants; natural order thirty-second, papilionacea: CAL. powdered, with callous points, and as long as the monospermous legumeu. The most remarkable species are :—

1. P. aculeata, the aculeated prickly psoralea, which rises with a shrubby branching stem three or four feet high, with ternate leaves, having wedge-shaped lobes terminating in a recurved sharp point, and the branches terminated by roundish heads of blue flowers; it grows in Ethiopia. These plants flower here every summer; the first sort greatest part of that season, and the others in July and August; all of which are succeeded by seeds in autumn. Keep them in pots in order for removing into the greenhouse in winter. They are propagated by seeds, sown in a hot-bed in the spring; and, when the plants are two or three inches high, prick them in separate small pots, and gradually harden them to the open air, so as to bear it fully by the end of May or beginning of June. They may also be propagated by cuttings any time in summer, planted in pots, and plunged in a little heat, or covered close with hand-glasses, shaded from the sun and watered.

2. P. bituminosa, the bituminous trifoliate psoralea, rises with a shrubby stalk, branching sparingly about two or three feet high, with ternate or three lobed leaves of bituminous scent, and blue flowers in close heads; it grows in Italy and France.

3. P. primata, the pinnated psoralea, rises with a woody soft stem, branching five or six feet high, pinnated leaves of three or four pairs of narrow lobes terminated by an odd one, and at the axillas close-sitting blue flowers with white keels. It is a native of Ethiopia.

PSYCHE, a nymph whom Cupid married, and carried into a place of bliss, where he long enjoyed her society. Venus put her to death, because she had robbed the world of her son; but Jupiter, at the request of Cupid, granted immortality to Psyche. The same Greek word, Vuxn, signifies a butterfly and the soul. Hence the former was used by the Greek artists as an emblem of the latter; and Cupid fondling or

burning a butterfly is the same as his caressing or paining Psyche or the human spirit. Indeed for almost all the ways in which Cupid is seen playing with butterflies, some parallel may be found in the representations of Cupid and Psyche. Thus, in an antique, the god of love is drawn in a triumphal car by two Psyches; in another by two butterflies. By this might be shadowed forth his power over the beings of the air, of which the car is an emblem.

PSYCHOTRIA, in botany, a genus of the monogynia order and pentandria class of plants; natural order forty-seventh, stellatæ : CAL. quinquedentate, persisting, and crowning the fruit: COR. tubulated; berry globose, with two hermispherical sulcated seeds. The species are four, viz.:-1. P. aspatica. 2. P. emetica. 3. P. herbacea and 4. P. serpens. They are all natives of Jamaica.

PSYLLI, a people in the south of Cyrenaica, so called from king Psyllus (Agathargides, quoted by Pliny); almost all overwhelmed by sand driven by a south wind (Herodotus). According to Pliny, Lucan, &c., they had something in their bodies fatal to serpents, and their very smell proved a charm against them.

PTARMIGAN, in ornithology. See TETRAO. PTELEA, shrub-trefoil, a genus of the monogynia order and tetrandria class of plants: COR. tetrapetalous: CAL. quadripartite inferior; fruit monospermous, with a roundish membrane in the middle. There are two species:

1. P. trifoliata, the Carolina shrub trefoil, has a shrubby upright stem, dividing into a branchy head eight or ten feet high, covered with a smooth purplish bark, trifoliate leaves, formed of oval spear-shaped folioles, and the branches terminated by large bunches of greenish-white flowers, succeeded by roundish bordered capsules. This is a hardy deciduous shrub, and a proper plant for the shrubbery and other ornamental plantations to increase the variety. It is propagated by seeds, layers, or cuttings.

2. P. viscosa, the viscous Indian ptelea, rises with several strong shrubby stems, branching erectly twelve or fifteen feet high, having a light brown bark, spear-shaped, stiff, simple leaves, and the branches terminated by clusters of greenish flowers. It is a stove plant, and is propagated commonly by seeds.

PTERIS, in botany, brakes or female fern, a genus of the order of filices, and cryptogamia class of plants; natural order fifty-fifth, filices. The fructifications are in lines under the margin. There are numerous species; the most remarkable is the

P. aquilina, or common female fern. The root of this is viscid, nauseous and bitterish; and, like all the rest of the fern tribe, has a salt, mucilaginous taste. It creeps under the ground in some rich soils to the depth of five or six feet, and is very difficult to be destroyed. Frequent mowings in pasture grounds, plentiful dunging in arable lands, but, above all, pouring urine upon it, are the most approved methods of killing it. It has, however, many good qualities to counterbalance the few bad ones. Fern cut while green, and left to rot upon the ground, is a good improver of land; for its ashes, if burnt,

will yield double the quantity of salt that most other vegetables will. Fern is also an excellent manure for potatoes; for, if buried beneath their roots, it never fails to produce a good crop. Its astringency is so great that it is used in many places abroad, in dressing and preparing kid and chamois leather. In several places in the north the inhabitants mow it green, and, burning it to ashes, make those ashes up into balls, with a little water, which they dry in the sun, and make use of them to wash their linen with instead of soap. In many of the Western Isles the people gain a very considerable profit from the sale of the ashes to soap and glass makers. In Glenelg in Inverness-shire, and other places, the people thatch their houses with the stalks of this fern, and fasten them down with ropes made either of birch-bark or heath. Sometimes they use the whole plant for the same purpose, but that does not make so durable a covering. Swine are fond of the roots, especially if boiled in their wash. In some parts of Normandy the poor have been reduced to the miserable necessity of mixing them with their bread. And in Siberia, and some other northern countries, the inhabitants brew them in their ale, mixing one-third of the roots to two-thirds of malt. The ancients used the root of this fern, and the whole plant, in decoctions, and diet-drinks, in chronic disorders of all kinds, arising from obstructions of the viscera and the spleen. The country people still continue to retain some of its ancient uses; for they give the powder of it to destroy worms, and look upon a bed of the green plant as a sovereign cure for the rickets in children.

PTEROCARPUS, in botany, a genus of the decandria order, and diadelphia class of plants; natural order thirty-second, papilionacea: CAL. quinquedentate: CAPS. sulcated, filiaceous, varicose. The seeds are few and solitary. There are four species, viz.:

1. P. draco. 2. P. ecastaphyllum. 3. P. lunatus and 4. P. santolinus. The last is by some referred to the genus santalum. It is called red saunders; and the wood is brought from the East Indies in large billets, of a compact texture, a dull red, almost blackish color on the outside, and a deep bright red within. This wood has no manifest smell, and little or no taste. The principal use of red saunders is as a coloring drug; with which intention it is employed in some formulæ, particularly in the compound of tincture of lavender. It communicates a deep red to rectified spirit, but gives no tinge to aqueous liquors; a small quantity of the resin, extracted by means of spirit, tinges a large one of fresh spirit, of an elegant blood-red. There is scarcely any oil, that of lavender excepted, to

which it communicates its color.

PTERONIA, in botany, a genus of the polygamia æqualis order, and syngenesia class of plants; natural order forty-ninth, compositæ: receptacle full of multipartite bristles; pappus a little plumy: CAL. imbricated.

PTEROSPERMUM, in botany, a genus of the polyandria order and monadelphia class of plants; natural order thirty-seventh, columniferæ: CAL. quinquepartite: COR. consists of five oblong spreading petals. The filaments are about

fifteen, which unite towards the base into a tube. The style cylindrical: CAPS. oval, woody, and quinquelocular, each bivalved, containing many oblong, compressed, and winged seeds. There is only one species, viz. :

P. pentapetes, a native of the East Indies; the wood of which is very hard, and very like that of the holly tree.

PTINUS, a genus of insects belonging to the rder of coleoptera. The antennæ are filiform: the last or exterior articulations are longer than the others; the thorax is nearly round, without a margin, into which the head is drawn back or received; the feet are made for leaping. The most remarkable species are,—

1. P. pectinicornis. This is produced from a worm that lodges in wood and the trunks of trees, such as the willow, where it makes deep round holes, turns to a winged insect, takes flight and roosts upon flowers. It is distinguished by its antennæ pectinated on one side, whence it has the name of feathered. The elytra and thorax are of a deep clay-colored brown, the antennæ and legs are of a pale brown.

2. P. pertinax. The form of this insect resembles the preceding one, saving that its antennæ are filiform. It is all over of a deep black→ ish-brown color resembling soot. It attacks household furniture, clothes, furs, and especially animals dried and preserved in collections of natural history, where it makes great havoc. When caught, this insect bends its legs, draws back its head, and lies as if it was dead till it thinks itself out of danger. It cannot be forced out of this state of inaction either by pricking or tearing; nothing but a strong degree of heat can oblige it to resume its motion and run away. There are many beautiful varieties of this genus; but they in general escape our attention by their minuteness, and living among hay, dried leaves, and divers other dusty matters, where they undergo their metamorphoses. The larvæ of some are found in trunks of decayed trees, in old tables, chairs, &c.

PTI'SAN, n. s. Fr. ptisanne; Gr. #7100avn. A medical drink, made of barley decocted with raisins and liquorice.

Thrice happy were those golden days of old, When dear as burgundy the ptisans sold; When patients chose to die with better will, Than breathe and pay the apothecary's bill. Garth. In fevers the aliments prescribed by Hippocrates were ptisans and cream of barley. Arbuthnot.

PTISAN is properly barley decorticated, or deprived of its husk, by beating in a mortar, as was the ancient practice; though the cooling potion obtained by boiling such barley in water and afterwards sweetening the liquor with liquorice root, is what at present goes by the name of ptisan; and to render it laxative some add a little senna, or other similar ingredient.

PTOLEMAIS, in ancient geography, the largest and most considerable town of Thebais, or Higher Egypt, and equal to Memphis. It was governed in the manner of a Greek republic, and situated on the west side of the Nile, almost opposite to Coptos. Strabo. This town, which was built by Ptolemy Philadelphus, is now called Ptolometa. The walls and gates

f royal maids how wretched is the fate, Born only to be victims of the state; Our hopes, our wishes, all our passions tried For public use, the slaves of others pride.

Id.

Granville. The multitude of partners does detract nothing from each private share, nor does the publickness of it lessen propriety in it.

Boyle. The apostle doth not speak as the publisher of a new law, but only as a teacher and monitor of what his lord and master had taught before. Kettlewell.

These were the public spirited men of their age, that is, patriots of their own interest. Dryden.

Philosophy, though it likes not a gaudy dress, yet, when it appears in public, must have so much complacency as to be cloathed in the ordinary fashion.

Locke.

PUBLIUS, a prænomen very common among the ancient Romans. It was the prænomen of the Scipios, Ovid, and many other eminent men.

PUCERON, in entomology, a common name given to several genera of animalcules or insects, most of which live on the young branches of trees, particularly the peach tree, and feed on the sap. The various genera and species of pucerons have each their favorite plant, on which they live and feed on its juices.

Earth pucerons differ from most of the other genera, by residing in the earth. In the month of March, if the turf be raised in several places in any dry pasture, there will be found, under some parts of it, clusters of ants; and, on a farther search, it will be usually found that these ants are gathered about some pucerons of a peculiar species. These pucerons are large, and of a grayish color, and are usually found in the midst of clusters of ants. As the common abode of the other kinds of puceron is on the young branches or leaves of trees, and as their only food is the sap of these trees, these earth kinds are supposed to extract their food from the roots of grasses, and other plants, in the same manner that the others do from the leaves and branches. The ants follow these and the other species, for the sake of the saccharine juices which they extract from plants, and which they evacuate very little altered from their original state in the vegetable.

Oak pucerons, a name given by naturalists to a very remarkable species of animal of the puceron kind. They bury themselves in the clefts of the oak and some other trees, and get into the crevices, where the bark is a little separated from the wood. They are larger than the other pucerons, the winged ones being nearly as large as a common house fly; those without wings are also larger than any other species of the same genus. The winged ones are, black, and, the others of a coffee color. Their trunk is twice the length of their bodies, and, when walking, it is carried straight along the belly, crailing behind it with the point up. When the puceron wishes to suck a part of a tree that is just before it, it draws up, and shortens the trunk, till it brings