materials that formed its outside covering. On examining the egg I found one end of the shell a little cracked, and could see that the sparrow it contained was yet alive. It was then restored to the nest, but in a few minutes was thrown out. The egg being suspended by the outside of the nest, was saved a second time from breaking. To see what would happen if the cuckow was removed, I took out the cuckow, and placed the egg containing the hedge-sparrow in its stead. The old birds, during this time, flew about the spot, showing signs of great anxiety; but when I withdrew, they quickly came to the nest again. On looking into it a quarter of an hour afterward, I found the young one completely hatched, warm and lively. The hedge-sparrows were suffered to remain undisturbed with their new charge for three hours, during which time they paid every attention to it, when the cuckow was again put into the nest. The old sparrows had been so much disturbed by these intrusions, that, for some time, they showed an unwillingness to come to it: however, at length, they came; and, on examining the nest again in a few minutes, I found the young sparrow was tumbled out. It was a second time restored; but again experienced the same fate.-From these experiments, and supposing from the feeble appearance of the cuckow, just disengaged from the shell, that it was utterly incapable of displacing either the egg or the young sparrow, I was induced to believe that the old sparrows were the only agents in this seemingly unnatural business: but I afterwards clearly perceived the cause of this strange phenomenon, by discovering the young cuckow in the

act of displacing his fellow-nestlings." Mr. Jenner remarks, that though nature permits the young cuckow to make this great waste, yet the animals thus destroyed are not thrown away or rendered useless. At the season when this happens, great numbers of tender quadrupeds and reptiles are seeking provision; and if they find the callow nestlings which have fallen victims to the young cuckow, they are furnished with food well adapted to their peculiar state. The bird arrives in Britain about the middle of April, commonly on the 17th, and departs in the first week of July. To this shortness of the period of residence, joined with the numerous progeny which nature has destined it to yield, Mr. Jenner attributes the motive for this singular arrangement in the economy of nature. By means of this resource, cuckow's eggs are laid in an abundance that could not be effected if the bird was to sit herself; and, beside, the egg laid on the last day before she quits the country is left in careful hands, and the young one follows at a future period.

Another species of the Cuculus or Cuckow genus is the Cuckow Indicator or " Honey-guide,” which is an inhabitant of Africa, and has an extraordinary faculty of discovering honey, of which it is very fond. The Dutch farmers and Hottentots near the Cape of Good Hope imitate the sound of this bird in the morning before it goes to feed, which brings it to them, and when it moves off for its repast, they follow, as correctly as possible, the direction of its flight, and scarcely ever fail to arrive at some store of wild honey.

CUCUMBER, See the next article.

CUCURBITACE, the name of an order in the frag ments of Linnæus, consisting of plants which resemble the gourd in external figure, habit, virtues, and sensible qualities. These are divided into two sections. 1. Those with hermaphrodite flowers, as the passion-flower. 2. Those with male and female flowers produced either on the same or distinct roots, as the cucumber, &c. In these the male flowers are generally separate from the female on the same root, and that either in the same angle of the leaves, as in the "sicyos" or serpent cucumber; or in different angles, as in the gourd.

CULEX, the gnat: is produced from an aquatic larva, of very singular appearance, which, when first hatched from the egg, measures about the tenth part of an inch. The eggs of the gnat are deposited in groupes of three or four hundred together, are extremely small, and are placed on the surface of the water close to the leaf or stalk of some water plant. It feeds on the minute vegetable and animal particles which it finds on the stagnant water, the head being armed with hooks to seize on aquatic insects, and other kinds of food. When arrived at its full growth, it casts its skin and commences chrysalis. In this state, like the larva from which it proceeded, it is loco-motive, springing about in the water in a similar manner. When ready to give birth to the included gnat, which usually happens in three or four days, it rises to the surface, and the animal quickly emerges from its confinement. Gnats are very troublesome in all countries, but particularly in Lapland, where the air is literally filled with such swarming myriads, that the inhabitants can scarcely venture out of the

smoke of their fires: here however the larva which fill the lakes of Lapland form a delicious and tempting repast to innumerable multitudes of aquatie birds, and thus contribute to the support of the very people which they so dreadfully torment.

CULMINATION, is the passage of any heavenly body over the meridian, or its greatest altitude for any given day.

CULPRIT, a formal reply of a proper officer in court, in behalf of the king, after a criminal has pleaded not guilty, affirming him to be guilty. The term is taken from culpabilis and pret, importing that he is ready to prove the accused guilty.

CULVERINE, a long slender piece of ordnance, serving to carry a ball to a great distance.

Cup-galls, a name given to a curious kind of galls found on the leaves of the oak, and some other trees. They contain the worm of a small fly that passed through all its changes in this habitation, being sometimes found in shape of a worm, sometimes in the nymph and sometimes in the flystate, in the cavity.

CUPRESSUS, a genus in botany, of which the most beautiful species is the horizontal cyprus, which is the common timber in some parts of the Levant, and is said to resist the worm, the moth, and putrefaction. The doors of St. Peter's at Rome, which lasted eleven hundred years, to the time of Pope Eugenius, were perfectly sound and entire when they were exchanged by that Pontiff for gates of brass. The Athenians used to bury their dead in coffins of cypress, and the mummy chests brought with those bodies out of Egypt are made of their wood.

CURATE, an officiating, but unbeneficed, clergyman, who performs the duty of a church, receives a salary from the incumbent of the living, and may be displaced by him or by the bishop. Other curates are perpetual. These are appointed where the tithes are impropriated, or in the hands of laymen, and no vicarage is endowed. This situation is for life, or during good behaviour; and the profits arise either from a fixed stipend or from a certain portion of the tithes.

CURCULIO, a genus of insects of the Coleoptera order, of which the curculio nucum, or nut-weevil, is the insect produced by the maggot residing in the hazel nut, and is universally known. The female pierces the young nut with its proboscis, and deposits an egg, which is hatched there, and the worm lives on the kernel, till at length the nut falls to the ground, and the insect creeps out of the hole which it has made by gnawing. It burrows under ground, where it lies dormant 7 or 8 months, and then casting its skin commences a chrysalis of the beetle tribe, in due course it casts its skin again and soars an inhabitant of the upper world. Many of the species of foreign and hot climates are large and of extreme beauty, but the most brilliant is the "Imperialis," or diamond beetle, a native of Brazil, which, when seen through a magnifyingglass, affords one of the finest sights imaginable.

SCURFEW, a signal given in cities taken in war, &c. to the inhabitants to go to bed. Pasquin says, it was so called, as being intended to warn people to secure themselves against the robberies and riots of the night. The most eminent curfew in England was that established by William the Conqueror,