corps of laborers, and its bulky and valuable publications, promises to become in the future one of the great scientific forces of the world.

tional Academy was incorporated at Washington by Congress in the year 1863. Its main object was to examine and report upon any scientific questions submitted to it by the Government departments, and thus to bring The institutions above described are the more importthe knowledge of specialists to the aid of the Govern- ant of the American scientific societies, but there are ment when necessary. In such investigations the Gov- many others of minor importance, several of them active ernment pays the actual expenses, but no compensation. and useful. Of these may be named the Society of The membership was originally limited to fifty, selected Natural History, of Portland, Maine, incorporated in from the scientists of the country. This restriction no 1850; the Essex County Natural History Society, of longer exists, and the number of members is now nearly Salem, Mass., incorporated in 1833, and now merged a hundred. The society is divided into two classes in the Essex Institute; the Albany Institute, organized one devoted to mathematics and physics, and one to in 1828; the Poughkeepsie Society of Natural History, natural history. It holds two stated meetings yearly-organized in 1874; the Buffalo Society of Natural Hisone in January at Washington, and one in August at tory, organized in 1861; the Elliot Society of Natural some other city. At these meetings general scientific History, of Charleston, S. C., organized in 1853; the subjects are discussed. The publications of the National New Orleans Academy of Science, organized in 1853; Academy consist of Annuals and Reports dating from the Ann Arbor Scientific Association, of Ann Arbor, 1863, and of Memoirs from 1866. Mich., organized in 1875; the Minnesota Academy of Natural Sciences, of Minneapolis, Minn., organized in 1873; the Wisconsin Academy of Science, Arts, and Letters, of Madison, Wis., organized in 1870; the Kansas Academy of Science, organized in 1867, and holding migratory annual meetings; and the Rochester Academy of Natural Sciences, established in 1881. In addition to these are many local institutions; various State cabinets of natural history, some of which are of considerable extent; and societies devoted to some single branch of science. Of these latter may be named the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, incorporated at Boston in 1829, and the American Chemical Society, of New York, organized in 1876. All the institutions here named issue publications, frequently of considerable value.

The Smithsonian Institution, at Washington, is now the most important of American institutions. James Smithson, an English scientist, who died at Genoa in 1829, left by will a bequest to the United States of America "to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men." The amount of this bequest, when received at Washington in 1838, was $515,169. The institution was founded, in accordance with the terms of the will, by act of Congress in 1846, and the interest of the bequest, amounting to $242,129, was applied to the erection of a suitable building. By judicious management, aided by small subsidiary bequests, the endowment had increased on Jan. 1, 1881, to $719,434.53. It is the intention to limit its increase to $1,000,000. Much of the work of the institution has been in connection with the National Museum, instituted in 1842 to receive the scientific material collected by the Wilkes Exploring Expedition. This museum was placed under the care of the Smithsonian Institution in 1858. Its collection has been increased by the numerous exploring expeditions of the Government, by the material gathered in the geological survey, and by the highly valuable contributions made by foreign Governments to the United States at the close of the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, in addition to the stores gathered by the institution itself. The museum is now closely affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution, though partly supported by annual appropriations from the Government. Its collection is of great value, and is very rich in many departments. It may, as a whole, be ranked with the largest European collections, and in such fields as the ethnology, zoology, and mineralogy of the United States it has no rival among the museums of the world. The large library of the institution, which yearly receives extensive additions, has been transferred to, and incorporated with, the National Library.

Of late years the American colleges and universities have been active in collecting scientific material, and much good work in this direction has been done within their walls. The Johns Hopkins University, of Baltimore, Md., has a fully organized corps of scientific professors, and does much original work, whose results are embodied in annual publications. Harvard and Yale are also active in scientific labor. Yale has a Peabody Museum and the valuable Marsh collection of vertebrate fossils. Harvard possesses the important Museum of Comparative Zoology and a magnificent herbarium which ranks with the best in the world. Columbia College has an herbarium, probably ranking second in the United States; Princeton College, the fine E. M. Natural History Museum, etc. The noble collections of the Cornell University, at Ithaca, N. Y., and the much older, and in some respects more complete, museum of Amherst College, are worthy of mention.

The scientific institutions herein described, and the course of science which is now becoming an important feature of college study, are what America has to show for a century of scientific progress. They form a broad foundation for its future development. Work of the greatest importance in embryology, histology, comparative anatomy, paleontology, etc., is now being actively prosecuted by specialists throughout the country, the Government is giving abundant aid to special investigations, and American science promises ere long to rival that of the much older and better-endowed institutions of Europe. (C. M.)

The special and most important labors of the Smithsonian Institution are, however, in another direction. It yields financial aid to important scientific researches. It acts as a medium of international exchanges of books and specimens between learned societies and individuals of the Eastern and Western hemispheres. It supplies great numbers of duplicate specimens to learned institutions, it aids the investigations of specialists by the ACCENTOR (Lat. accentor, a chanter). 1. A genus loan of valuable specimens, and it publishes the results of oscine passerine birds of uncertain position; by some of such researches and other papers of scientific import-placed among the thrushes, chats, and warblers of the ance in the highly valuable series of works which it issues. These works, which have given the Smithsonian Institution a high standing in the scientific world, consist of Annual Reports from 1846 to date; of Miscel laneous Collections, begun in 1862, and now numbering 21 volumes; and of Contributions to Knowledge, begun in 1848, and numbering 23 volumes. In addition, it issues the publications of the National Museum, consisting of Proceedings and Bulletins, the Publications of the Bureau of Ethnology, and the Bulletin of the Philo sophical Society of Washington. This institution, with its ample endowment, its special advantages, its skilled

24

ACCEPTANCE-ACCIPITRES.

Old World; by others made the type of a sub-family, Accentorina, next to the chats (Saxicolina). 2. Taken as the English name of the hedge-sparrow, hedgechanter, or hedge-accentor, A. modularis of Europe. 3. In the U. S. sometimes used as the English name of species of the sylvicoline genus Siurus, the usual song of which is chanted in monotone.

(E. C.) ACCEPTANCE, ACCEPTOR (from the Latin acSee Vol. I. cipere, to receive). In the law, generally, P. 79 Am. acceptance means the receipt of anything ed. (p. 82 in pursuance of a contract on the part of Edin. ed.). one person to deliver and of another to receive it. Thus delivery and acceptance are, as a rule, necessary to a complete contract for the sale of chattels. From its more general meaning it has acquired in mercantile law the more particular signification of the act of one who promises to pay in money a bill of exchange or draft when it shall fall due, for he thereby becomes the principal debtor on the bill, and, like the maker of a promissory note, undertakes to pay the amount of it at maturity. A bill of exchange being a request by the drawer of it to the drawee, or person on whom it is drawn, to pay a specified sum at a certain time for his (the drawer's) account, the acceptance of it by the drawee creates an obligation on his part to pay it at maturity, and the drawer becomes his surety for its payment. The usual form of acceptance consists in across the bill and signwriting the word "accepted But the acceptance need not ing the acceptor's name. be written on the bill, but may be in writing on another paper, and need not necessarily be in writing at all. In England, however, by statute, an acceptance must now be in writing, and similar statutes have been enacted in this country in the States of Alabama, California, Delaware. Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Oregon, New York, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

equity in favor of certain persons. Relief will also be
afforded where boundaries have become by accident con-
fused, where there has been an accidental omission to
indorse a promissory note, and in certain other cases
of less frequent occurrence.

The peculiar jurisdiction of equity with regard to penalties and forfeitures is also supposed to be traceable in the payment or perform the act in default of which the its origin to the head of accident. The failure to make in to have been occasioned by accident, and the interpoperson penalty or forfeiture has been provided was presumed sition of a court of equity for the relief of the (L. L., JR.) ACCIPITRES (Lat. accipiter, a hawk; ad and default was thus justified. 1. In its larger (ordinal) acceptation capio, I take, seize), an order or sub-order of birds, birds of prey. the term is equivalent to the Raptores of Illiger and In this sense it corresponds Cuvier or Rapaces of Temminck, and covers all the rapacious birds, as the owls and American vultures, as well as the hawks, etc. with the AETOMORPHÆ of Huxley (which see). 2. In its lesser signification, as a sub-order of Raptores, it includes only the diurnal birds of prey, excluding the owls (Striges) and also the American vultures (CatharTaken in the (usual) ordinal signification, Accipitres tides) and African secretary-bird (Gypogeranides). furnish the following characters: The bill epignathous (hooked), and furnished with a soft cere, in or at the edge of which the nostrils open, and feet not zygodactyle. This expression is diagnostic, for the parrots, the only other birds with hooked and cered bill, are zygodactyle. There are two carotid arteries; the syrinx, when developed (there is none in Cathartides), has but one pair of intrinsic muscles. The sternum is ample and deep-keeled, its posterior margin being doubly or sincentral emargination; the furculum ankylosed or not. gly notched or fenestrate on each side, or entire, with The acceptance may be absolute, which is a positive Angle of mandible not recurved; maxillo-palatines Hallux always present, usually agreement to pay the bill according to its tenor; or it united to an ossified septum; basipterygoid processes may be made conditional upon some contingency, such present or absent. as the receipt of a particular shipment of goods against valid and insistent; outer toe reversible in some cases, which the bill is drawn. But such condition or quali- never permanently reversed. Ambiens muscle present (s. w.) present (except in Cathartides). Plumage after-shaftfication must receive the assent of all antecedent parties (except in Striges). Coca coli and tufted oil-gland to the bill in order to hold them liable. ACCIDENT. An accident, in law, may be defined ed or not. Nature altricial, yet ptilopædic, the young See Vol. I. as an unforeseen and injurious occurrence being downy, yet long reared in the nest. The alip. 79 Am. not attributable to mistake, neglect, or mis-mentary canal varies with the families, but differs from ed. (p. 83 conduct. The principles of the common law Edin. ed.). make ample provision for relief from the Where, for consequences of accident in certain cases. example, written instruments are lost, parol evidence to prove their contents will generally be admitted in a court of law. Resort, however, is usually had in cases of accident to courts of chancery, where relief may often be obtained in accordance with the well-settled principles of equity jurisprudence. A court of equity will not administer relief in cases of accident (1) where there is an adequate remedy at law; (2) where the person seeking relief has by his own gross neglect or misconduct contributed to or caused the accident; (3) where the equity of the party against whom the relief is sought is equal or superior to that of the party invoking the aid of the court; (4) where the relief sought is an entire release from an obligation to perform an express covenant entered into by the suitor, the performance of which, owing to some intervening events, has become unexpectedly harsh or burdensome. Subject to the qualifications above stated, equity will relieve in many instances of accident where otherwise damage might ensue. Where title-deeds have been lost, equity will in cerWhere a tain cases decree a re-execution of them. bond or other instrument for the payment of money has been mislaid, the creditor may assert his rights in equity and recover the amount of his debt, indemnity being usually required to protect the debtor against any contingent liability growing out of the subsequent discovery of the instrument.

The defective execution of powers will be aided in

that of vegetarian birds in adaptation to an exclusively
animal diet. In the higher accipitrine types the whole
structure betokens strength, activity, and ferocity, car-
nivorous propensities and predaceous nature. Most of
the smaller or weaker species feed much upon insects,
others more particularly upon reptiles and fish, others
upon carrion; but the majority prey upon other birds
and upon mammals. To this end the claws, no less
than the beak, are specially adapted by their develop;
ment into great talons. These weapons of offence and
defence are as a rule of large size, strength, curvature,
and acuteness, and also peculiar in being convex on the
sides, gradually narrowing to the point, and little or
not excavated underneath. The inner claw is larger
than the outer, and the hinder one is not smaller than
the middle front one; all are very flexibly jointed, so
that they may be strongly bent underneath their digits,
carrying to an extreme the prehensile power of the
feet. The legs are muscular and largely free from the
body, feathered to the suffrago or beyond; when un-
reticulate, granular-rugose, etc. The wings are ample,
feathered the tarsal envelope is variously scutellate,
and, as usual in birds below Passeres, the secondary
coverts are long and numerous, covering three-fourths
or more of the folded wing. The tail, though very
variable in shape, has twelve rectrices (with rare ex-
ceptions).

Representatives of this order are found in every part more classificatory value than that attaching to families. of the world. They include four types of structure, of One of these, Gypogeranides, consists of the single

species (genus and family) Gupogeranus serpentarius, the serpent-eater or secretary-bird of Africa; it shows a curious grallatorial analogy, being mounted on long legs like a crane and having several important structural modifications. The other three are the Striges, or owls; the Accipitres proper, embracing all the hawks, eagles, etc., and the Old-World vultures; and the Cathartides, or American vultures. The last named are more different from the others collectively than these are from one another. The three groups being well represented in North America, we offer the following scheme of classification:

Feet scarcely raptorial, with weak, blunt, lengthened,

See Vol. I.

ed. (p. 91

and little curved or contractile claws. Hind toe elevated, not more than half as long as outer toe, with small claw; middle toe lengthened; outer toe not versatile; front toes all webbed at base; basal joint of middle toe longer than either of the succeeding ones. Nostrils large, perforate. Bill little raptorial, length-goods ened, and somewhat contracted in its continuity; tomia never lobed or toothed; tip blunt, little hooked.' Head largely naked. Index digit with a large claw. No syrinx, cœca, after-shafts, or tufted oil-gland. Ambiens muscle present; femoro-caudal present or absent; semitendinosus and its accessory present. CATHARTIDES. Diurnal; gressorial; feed upon carrion. Cathartida. Feet highly raptorial, with large, strong, sharp, curved contractile claws. Hind toe not elevated, lengthened, more than one-half as long as outer toe, with large claw; outer toe often versatile; front toes with slight basal webbing between outer and middle, or none. Nostrils small, imperforate. Bill short, stout, seldom contracted in its continuity, tomia often once or twice lobed or toothed, tip sharp, much hooked. Head feathered, completely or in greatest part. Syrinx developed, with one pair of intrinsic muscles. Coca present. Plumage with or without after-shafts. Ambiens present or absent. Femoro-caudal present. Semi-tendinosus and its accessory absent. As a rule saltatorial, and kill their prey.

Physiognomy not peculiar; no great lateral expansion of the cranium or thickening of its walls with diploë; eyes looking sideways; no facial disc, or only an imperfect one; base of bill not hidden by antrorse appressed feathers. Nostrils pierced wholly within the cere. No external ear-conch. Tomia of bill usually toothed or lobed. Outer toe not shorter than inner one, and rarely versatile. Basal joint of middle toe longer than the next. Feet (with rare exceptions) in greatest part or entirely bare of feathers, scutellate or reticulate, or both; toes always bare and scaly. Sternum commonly single-notched or single-fenestrate on each side behind; sometimes entire. Oil-gland tufted. Plumage compact, usually after-shafted; flight audible. Ambiens muscle present. Habits diurACCIPITRES (proper). Outer toe not reversible; plumage usually after

nal

shafted

shafts

Falconida.

Outer toe reversible; plumage without afterPandionid. Physiognomy peculiar by reason of great lateral expansion, lengthwise contraction and diploic thickening of the cranium, which is often unsymmetrical. Eyes looking forward, surrounded by a radiating disc of modified feathers, in front antrorse, appressed, hiding base of bill. Nostrils usually at edge of the cere. A large external ear-conch often developed. Tomia of bill never lobed or toothed. Outer toe completely versatile, shorter than inner toe. Basal joint of middle toe not longer than the next, much shorter than the penultimate one. Feet usually feathery or bristly to or on the toes. Oil-gland nude. Plumage without after-shafts, soft and lax; flight noiseless. Ambiens absent. Habits nocturSTRIGES. Sternum entire behind, with central emargination; furculum ankylosed. Middle claw pectinate. Facial disc complete, triangular (embracing only the "barn-owls," which are related to Steatornithidae and Caprimulgida).. Aluconidæ. Sternum double-notched or fenestrate behind; furculum free. Middle claw not pectinate. Facial disc circular when complete (ordinary owls), Strigidæ. (E. C.)

nal

counts.

ACCOMPLICE, in criminal law, one who is in some way concerned in the commission of a crime, though not as a principal. It was formerly doubted whether a prisoner might be convicted on the unsupported evidence of an accomplice. This doubt has been resolved in the affirmative. It has, however, become the practice for the judge strenuously to advise the jury to acquit unless the evidence of the accomplice be corroborated either by other testimony or by the attendant circumstances. (L. L., JR.) ACCOUNT, in law, a statement of the mutual demands in the nature of debt and credit P. 86 Am. arising out of contracts or some fiduciary relation. In mercantile law, when an account Edin. ed.). is made up to a certain time and a balance struck, and this has been examined and accepted by the parties expressly or by acquiescence, it is an account stated. Books of the original entries of the charges for sold and delivered in mercantile transactions are valuable as evidence of the sale and delivery, being the memoranda made at the time of the transaction, and are generally, in this country, admissible as evidence in courts of law, with the testimony of the person who made the entries, to prove prima facie the contract under which the plaintiff seeks to recover. So an account stated may form the basis of a suit to recover the balance shown by it to be due to the plaintiff. Account forms a distinct branch of equity jurisdiction concurrently with courts of law, but extending also (1) to dealings so complicated that they cannot be adjusted in a court of law; (2) to the existence of a fiduciary relation between the parties; (3) to discovery of facts in the knowledge of the parties or the production of papers relating to their rights; and (4) to the appropriation of payments. Both in the courts of law and equity the disposition is to refuse to interfere with stated ac(s. W.) ACETIC ACID (formula, C2HO.OH). Acetic acid See Vol. I. was the only acid with which the ancients p. 88 Am. were acquainted, and frequent references to Edin. ed.). ed. (p. 93 vinegar, its impure form, with more especial reference to its solvent power, are found in Pliny, Livy, and Plutarch. This vinegar of the ancients was an impure wine-vinegar, and the alchemists were the first who prepared pure acetic acid by distillation. Wood-vinegar was also known in the time of Glauber, who refers to it in 1648. Lavoisier first showed that acetic acid is a product of the oxidation of alcohol. Acetic acid at the present time is made from one of two sources-either as a product of the oxidation of alcohol or by the destructive distillation of wood. Under the first head we have the production of vinegar from wines as carried out in wine-growing countries, from malt liquors as carried out in England, or from cider and fruit-juices as carried out in this country. In these several cases the process of its preparation, known as the acetous fermentation," is largely but not solely one of atmospheric oxidation, as a vegetable organism, the Mycoderma aceti (see FERMENTATION, Vol. IX.), plays an important part. der the first head also we have the " quick-vinegar' process, whereby weak spirit containing 5 to 7 per cent. of alcohol is rapidly changed into vinegar. In this case casks are used loosely filled with beech-wood or deal shavings, and the spirit, slightly warmed, is made to slowly trickle through the cask. The large surface exposed allows of an abundant action of atmoSpheric oxygen, and this, at the temperature of 97°104° F. which is kept up, rapidly changes the alcohol into acetic acid. Under the second head we have the production of what is known as "pyroligneous acid," or wood-vinegar. This is produced chiefly from oakand beech-wood, and is in its crude state a very complex mixture, containing, besides acetic acid, propionic acid, acetone, wood-spirit or methyl alcohol, and other impurities. The acetic acid is obtained by neutralizing the crude pyroligneous acid with lime, removing the brown acetate of lime which forms, and after heating

66

Un