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guilty of felony in carrying them away. With respect to what shall be considered a sufficient carrying away, to constitute the offence of larceny, it seems that any, the least removing of the thing taken, from the place where it was before, is sufficient for this purpose, though it be not quite carried off; but there must be a removal from the place, though it is put back again: and where a pack in a waggon was not actually moved away, but only turned up an end, in order to be carried off, it was held no felony.

As grand larceny is a felonious and fraudulent taking of the mere personal goods of another above the value of 12d., so it is petit larceny, where the thing stolen is but of the value of 12d., or under. In the several other particulars above mentioned, petit larceny agrees with grand larceny; but in a petit larceny there can be no accessaries either before or after.

Larceny from the person. If larceny from the person be done privily without one's knowledge, by picking of pockets or otherwise, it is excluded from the benefit of clergy, by 8 Elizabeth, c. 4, provided the thing stolen be above the value of 12d.; but if done openly and avowedly before one's face, it is within the benefit of clergy.

Larceny from the house. By the common law this was not punished otherwise than as a simple larceny, except in the case of burglary, which is a breaking into a house in the night-time, with intent to steal, and punished capitally; but now, by several statutes, stealing in a house is deprived of the benefit of clergy in almost every instance. As, first, in larceny above 12d., in a church or chapel, without violence or breaking the same. Secondly, in a booth or tent, in a fair or market, by day or night, by violence or breaking the same, the owner or some person of his family being therein. Thirdly, by robbing, which implies breaking into, a dwelling-house in the day time, no person being therein. Fourthly, in the same, by day or night, without breaking, any person being therein, and put in fear. Secondly, in larcenies to the value of 5s., committed, first, by breaking any dwelling-house, or out-house, shop, or warehouse, no person being therein in the day time. Secondly, by privately stealing in a shop, warehouse, coach-house, or stable, by day or night, though the same be not broken open, and no person being therein. Lastly, in larcenies to the value of 40s., from a dwelling

house or its out-houses, although the same be not broken, and whether any person be therein or not, unless by apprentices under fifteen against their masters.

Every person who shall be convicted of the feloniously taking away in the day-time any money or goods of the value of 58., in any dwelling house or out-house thereunto belonging, and used to and with the same, though no person be therein, shall be guilty of felony, without benefit of clergy. 39 Elizabeth, c. 15.

Receiving stolen goods. Any person who shall buy or receive any stolen goods, knowing them to be stolen; or shall receive, harbour, or conceal any felons or thieves, knowing them to be so, shall be deemed accessary to the felony; and being convicted on the testimony of one witness, shall suffer death as a felon convict; but he shall be entitled to his clergy. 5 Anne, c. 31. Any person convicted of receiving or buying stolen goods, knowing them to be stolen, may be transported for fourteen years. 4 George I. c. 11. Where the principal felon is found guilty to the value of 10d., that is, of petit larceny only, the receiver, knowing the goods to have been stolen, cannot be transported for fourteen years, and ought not to be put upon his trial. For the acts which make receivers of stolen goods, knowingly, accessaries to the felony, must be understood to make them accessaries in such cases only, where, by law, an accessary may be; and there can be no accessary to petit larceny.

Every person who shall apprehend any one guilty of breaking open houses in a felonious manner, or of privately and feloniously stealing goods, wares, or merchandizes, of the value of 58., in any shop, warehouse, coachhouse, or stable, though it be not broken open, and though no person be therein to be put in fear, and shall prosecute him to conviction, shall have a certificate without fee, under the hand of the judge, certifying such conviction, and within what parish and place the felony was committed, and also that such felon was discovered and taken, by the person so discovering or apprehending him; and if any dispute arise between several persons so discovering or apprehending, the judge shall appoint the certificate into so many shares, to be divided among the persons concerned, as to him shall seem just and reasonable. This certificate is commonly called a Tyburn ticket, and exempts the person from all parish and ward offices in

the parish where the robbery was committed.

With respect to the offence of larceny, it is difficult in so short a compass to define the particular distinctions which have been made; but it may be useful to mention some general particulars.

To constitute a larceny there must be a taking the goods without the consent of the owner; so that a fair loan, borrowing, or receipt of goods upon trust, which are af terwards converted, with intention to steal, to the use of the borrower, does not constitute a larceny or theft; but there are cases in which servants who have goods delivered to them, also apprentices, bankers clerks, and others, may be, guilty of larceny; and there are others where the delivery of goods having been obtained by fraud, for the purpose of stealing them, a theft is held to be committed. A man may also be guilty of this offence, though the goods are his own, as where he steals goods from a pawnbroker, or other person who has a property in them for a particular purpose and limited time, with intent to charge him with the loss.

The felonious taking must also be from the possession of the owner; that is, either constructively or actually his possession; which may be where the thief has the actual possession, as a watch delivered for the purpose of being pawned. And the goods must be personal chattels, not such as savour of the realty, such as standing corn; but corn cut, or trees felled, are personal chattels, and may be the subject of larceny; and there are many statutes which make stealing certain articles, as lead, iron, and other things specified, affixed to the house or freehold, larceny. Bonds and bills were not such property as could be said to be stolen at common law, but they are made so by the statute law. And though it cannot be committed of vile animals which are wild by nature, yet the stealing of domesticated and tame animals is larceny, such as dogs, horses, fowls, and even hawks.

LARIX, in botany, the larch-tree, a species of Pinus. See the article PINUS.

LARK. See ALAUDA.

LARVA, in natural history. The larva state of insects, in general, denotes caterpillars of all kinds. The caterpillar state is that through which every butterfly must pass before it arrives at its perfection and beauty.

The change from caterpillar to butterfly was long esteemed a sort of metamorphosis,

or real change of one animal into another; but this is by no means the case. The egg of a butterfly produces a butterfly, with all the lineaments of its parent'; only these are not disclosed at first, but for the greater part of the animal's life they are covered with a sort of case or muscular coat, in which are legs for walking: these only suit it in this state, but its mouth takes in nourishment, which is conveyed to the included animal; and after a proper time this covering is thrown off, and the butterfly, which all the while might be discovered in it by an accurate observer with the help of a microscope, appears in its proper form. The care of all the butterfly tribe to lodge their eggs in safety is surprising. Those whose eggs are to be hatched in a few weeks, and who are to live in the caterpillar state during part of the remaining summer, always lay them on the leaves of such plants as will afford a proper nourishment; but, on the contrary, those whose eggs are to remain unhatched till the following spring, always lay them on the branches of trees and shrubs, and usually are careful to select such places as are least exposed to the rigour of the ensuing season, and frequently cover them from it in an artful manner. Some make a general coat of a hairy matter over them, taking the hairs from their own bodies for that purpose; others hide themselves in hollow places in trees, and in other sheltered cells, and there live in a kind of torpid state during the whole winter, that they may deposit their eggs in the succeed. ing springs at a time when there will be no severities of weather for them to combat. The day-butterflies only do this, and of these but a very few species: but the night ones, or phalene, all, without exception, lay their eggs as soon as they have been in copulation with the male, and die imme. diately afterwards.

Nothing is more surprising in insects than their industry; and in this the caterpillars yield to no kind, not to mention their silk, the spinning of which is one great proof of it. The sheaths and cases which some of these insects build for passing their transformations under, are by some made with their own hair, mixed with pieces of bark, leaves, and other parts of trees, with paper, and other materials; and the structure of these is well worthy our attention. Yet there are others whose workmanship in this article, far exceeds these. There is one which builds in wood, and is able to give its

case a hardness greater than that of the wood itself in its natural state. This is the strange horned caterpillar of the willow, which is one of those that eat their exuviæ. This creature has extremely sharp teeth, and with these it cuts the wood into a number of small fragments; these fragments it afterwards unites together into a case, of what shape it pleases, by means of a peculiar silk, which is no other than a tough and viscous juice, which hardens as it dries, and is a strong and firm cement. The solidity of the case being thus provided for, we are to consider, that the caterpillar inclosed in it is to become a butterfly; and the wonder is, in what manner a creature of this help. less kind, which has neither legs to dig, nor teeth to gnaw with, is to make its way out of so firm and strong a lodgment as this in which it is hatched. The butterfly, as soon as hatched, discharges a liquor which sof tens the viscous matter that holds the case together; and so its several fragments falling to pieces, the way out lies open. Reaumur judged, from the effects, that this liquor must be of a singular nature, and very different from the generality of animal fluids; and in dissecting this creature in the caterpillar state, there will always be found near the mouth, and under the œsophagus, a bladder of the size of a small pea, full of a limpid liquor, of a very quick and penetrating smell, and which, upon trial, proves to be a very powerful acid; and among other properties, which it has in common with other acids, it sensibly softens the glue of the case, on a common application. It is evident that this liquor, besides its use to the caterpillar, remains with it in the chrysalis state, and is what gives it a power of dissolving the structure of the case, and making its way through in a proper manner at the necessary time.

Boerhaave adopted the opinion that there are no true acids in animals, except in the stomach or intestines; but this familiar instance proves the contrary. Another very curious and mysterious artifice is that by which some species of caterpillars, when the time of their changing into the chrysalis state is coming on, make themselves lodgments in the leaves of the trees, by rolling them up in such a manner as to make themselves a sort of hollow cylindric case, proportioned to the thickness of their body, well defended against the injuries of the air, and carefully secured for their state of tranquillity. Besides these caterpillars, which in this

manner roll up the leaves of plants, there are other species which only bend them once, and others, which by means of thin threads, connect many leaves together to make them a case. All this is a very surprising work, but much inferior to this method of rolling.

The different species of caterpillars have different inclinations, not only in their spinning and their choice of food, but even in their manners and behaviour one to another. Some never part company from the time of their being hatched to their last change, but live and feed together, and undergo together their change into the chrysalis state. Others separate one from another as soon as able to crawl about, and each seeks its fortune single; and there are others which regularly live to a certain time of their lives in community, and then separate, each to shift for itself, and never to meet again in that state. See ENTOMOLOGY, INSECTS, &c.

LARUS, the gull, in natural history, a genus of birds of the order Anseres. Generic character: bill strong, straight, sharp edged, bending down somewhat at the tip; lower mandible exhibiting an angular prominence; nostrils in the middle of the bill, body light; wings long; legs small, and naked above the knee; back toe small. They inhabit principally the northern climates, subsisting on carrion, and on fishes. They are reported, when greatly alarmed, almost universally to throw up from their stomach the food they have recently swal lowed. Gmelin reckons fifteen species, and Latham nineteen. L. marinus, is twenty-nine inches in length, and of the weight of five pounds. It is found in various parts of England, and on most of the northern coasts of Europe. It breeds in the most elevated cliffs, laying its eggs on heaps of dung deposited by various birds. It feeds principally on fishes, but sometimes attacks birds, and is said to bear a particu. lar enmity to the eider-duck. See Aves, Plate IX. fig. 2.

L. fuscus, or the herring gull, is somewhat less than the former, frequents the same situations, and subsists, like that, chiefly upon fish. In the herring season it is seen watching the nets of the fishermen, and is daring enough frequently to seize its prey from the boats and nets.

L. canus, or the common gull, is sixteen inches long, and about a pound in weight. It breeds on the rocks and cliffs on the British coasts, and on the banks of the Thames,

near its union with the sea, may be seen in immense numbers picking up the worms and small fishes deposited by the tide. It will also follow the course of the plough over the fields, and delights in the insects and worms which are thrown up by it. The cockchafer in its larva state, is a particular favourite with this bird. See Aves, Plate IX. fig. 1.

L. ridibundus, the black-cap, or pewit gull, breeds in the fens of Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire, and, after the season of breeding is over, returns to the coasts. In some parts of Syria these birds are so familiar as to approach on being called, and to catch pieces of bread in the air as they are thrown up from the hands of the women. The old birds of this species are both rank and tough, but the young are eaten by many persons, and were formerly much admired for the table, taken so young as to be unable to fly. The particular islets in the fenny wastes of Lincolnshire, which used to be preferred by these birds for breeding, were every year in winter cleared of weeds, rushes, and other impediments, in preparation for their return in large flocks to breed in the spring, and when the young had attained the precise growth, several men were employed with long staves to hurry them into nets spread for their reception. This process constituted a favourite diversion, and the rich and fashionable assembled to be spectators of it from a considerable distance. The birds were sold at the rate of five shillings per dozen, and in the details of royal and noble feasts, will be found to have constituted an article of high and almost indispensable importance.

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L. catarractus, or the brown gull, weighs about three pounds. It is more frequent in the cold than in the warmer latitudes, and is perhaps the most daring and fierce of all the species. In the Faro islands, lambs are stated to be often torn to pieces by it, and carried to its nest. On the island of Foula, however, it is said to be highly valued on account of its enmity to the eagle, which it attacks, and follows with the most animated hostility, in this instance becoming the means of security to flocks. It frequently makes prey of the smaller gulls and of other birds, and is often observed to watch the movements of birds on the water, and as they are bearing off their prey in triumph and imagined security, to pounce upon them with amazing rapidity, obliging them to drop their victims, which in the

same instant are intercepted by this rapacious intruder. Even the albatross, when on the wing, though so much larger than this bird, is by no means a match for it in strength and courage, and finds its effectual resource only in alighting upon the water, which it does with all possible rapidity, when the skua inmediately ceases to annoy it. During the season of incubation, the skua gull will attack every creature ap proaching its habitation, not excepting the human species, several of whom have been assailed by it in company, with an energy and fury truly formidable. Its feathers are in high estimation, and thought by many equal to those of the goose. It is in many places killed merely for these.

L. tridactylus, or the tarrock, breeds in Scotland, and is found so far north as Spitzbergen. It is an attendant on the progress of whales and other large fishes, which drive the smaller inhabitants of the ocean into creeks and shallows, where the tarrocks suddenly dart on them, ensuring always an easy and full repast. They are very clamorous, swim and fly well, are often seen on detached pieces of ice, are used by the inhabitants of Greenland for food, their eggs being highly valued for the same purpose, while their skins are converted into materials for caps and garments. For the black-toed gull, see Aves, Plate IX. fig. 3.

LARYNX, the thick upper part of the aspera arteria, or wind-pipe. See ANA

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LASERPITIUM, in botany, laserwort, a genus of the Pentandria Digynia class and order. Natural order of Umbellatæ or Umbelliferæ. Essential character: petals bent in, emarginate, spreading; fruit oblong, with eight membranaceous angles. There are fifteen species, natives of the South of Europe.

LASIOSTO MA, in botany, a genus of the Tetrandria Monogynia class and order. Natural order of Ap ocineæ, Jussieu. Essential character: calyx very short, five petaled, with two acute scales; corolla funnel form, four-cleft; capsule orbiculate, one-celled, two-seeded. There is only onespecies, viz. L. rouhamon; this is a shrub, seven or eight feet in height, with a greyish irregular bark, and a whitish wood; branches and branchlets opposite, covered with a russet down, spreading over the neighbouring trees. The branchlets are knobbed, and at each joint have a pair of leaves, ending in a point; they are of a pale green colour, on short petioles; flowers in small axillary

corymbs, on a small peduncle, which has two scales at the base; corolla white; capsule yellow; this shrub is called by the Caribs rouhahamon; it is in flower and fruit during the months of October and November; it is found on the banks of the river Sinemari, in Guiana, forty leagues from its mouth.

LAST, in general, signifies the burden or load of a ship.

It signifies also a certain measure of fish, corn, wool, leather, &c. A last of codfish, white herrings, meal, and ashes for soap, is twelve barrels; of corn or rapeseed, ten quarters; of gun-powder, twentyfour barrels; of red-herrings, twenty cades; of hides, twelve dozen; of leather, twenty dickers; of pitch and tar, fourteen barrels of wool, twelve sacks; of stockfish, one thousand; of flax or feathers, 1700lb.

LATH, in building, a long, thin, and narrow slip of wood, nailed to the rafters of a roof or ceiling, in order to sustain the covering. These are distinguished into three kinds, according to the different kinds of wood of which they are made, viz. heart of oak, sap-laths, and deal laths; of which the two last are used for ceilings and partitions, and the first for tiling only. Laths are also distinguished according to their length, into five feet, four feet, and three feet laths, though the statute allows but of two lengths, those of five, and those of three feet, each of which ought to be an inch and a half in breadth, and half an inch in thickness, but they are commonly less.

LATHS, of cleaving. The lath-cleavers having cut their timbers into lengths, they cleave each piece with wedges, into eight, twelve, or sixteen, according to the size of their timber; these pieces are called bolts; this is done by the felt-grain, which is that grain which is seen to run round in rings at the end of a piece of a tree. Thus they are cut out for the breadth of the laths, and this work is called felting. Afterwards they cleave the laths into their proper thicknesses with their chit, by the quarter-grain, which is that which runs in a straight line towards the pith. See GRAIN.

LATHE, in turning, is an engine used in turning wood, ivory, and other materials.

The lathe we are about to describe is made of iron in the best manner. See Plate LATIE. Fig. 1, is an elevation of the whole machine frontwise; fig. 2, an elevation sideways; fig. 3, an elevation of the lathe only on a larger scale; in fig. 4, are two eleva

tions of an apparatus to be attached to the lathe for drilling holes; fig. 5, is an elevation of the rest; and fig. 6, a face elevation of one of the puppets.

The frame of the lathe is of wood, and consists of two ground cells, a b, two uprights, dd, morticed into them, and cross pieces, ef, at top connecting them toge ther; upon the uppermost of these pieces the bench sustaining the lathe is fixed; g is another bench, supported by iron brackets, to receive a vice or other tools at the option of the workmen; between the two uprights, dd, the axis of the great foot wheel turns, it is pointed at the ends and turns in small conical holes in pieces of hard steel let into the uprights, d d, one of these holes is in the end of a screw, by turning which, the axis can be tightened up so as to turn very freely without any shake; the axis is made of wrought iron, and the points at the end are of hard steel welded together, it is bent in the middle to form a crank; and h is the connecting rod by which it is moved from a treadle, i; the treadle is a piece of board, i, seen endways, in fig. 2, screwed to an axle, k, at one end, on which it turns, and at the other end is broader to receive the workman's foot; in the middle a staple is fixed, and the connecting rod, h, hooked to it; A is the great wheel of cast iron, and of considerable weight in the rim, wedged fast on the axis, and turns round with it; it is by the momentum of this wheel that it continues to turn, while the crank and treadle are rising, and consequently when the workman exerts no power upon them. When the crank bas passed the vertical position, and begins to descend, he presses his foot upon the treadle, to give the wheel a sufficient impetus, to continue its motion until it arrives at the same position again.

We now come to describe the upper part of the machine, or lathe, the wheel and treadle being only the first mover, it is shewn on a larger scale in fig. 3, and it is to this figure we shall refer in describing it; BB is a strong triangular iron bar, firmly supported by its ends, on two short pillars screwed at their lower ends to the bench; this bar is perfectly straight and the sides flat; DE are two iron standards, called puppets, fitted upon the triangular bar, D, and fixed at any place by screws, they are both alike, and one of them is shewn endways in fig. 6, it has an opening made in it at the bottom, the inside of which is filed extremely true to fit upon the upper angle of

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