toothed; corolla four-petalled; berry oneseeded; female nectary none; nut onecelled. One species, a large tree of Japan. AUDIENCE, is the name of a court of justice established in the West Indies by the Spaniards, answering in effect to the parliaments of France. These courts take in several provinces, called also audiences, from the names of the tribunal to which they belong. AUDIENCE is also the name of an ecclesiastical court, held by the archbishop of Canterbury, wherein differences upon elections, consecrations, institutions, marriages, &c. are heard. AUDITORY nerves, in anatomy, a pair of nerves arising from the medulla oblongata, with two trunks, the one of which is called the portio dura, hard portion; the other portio mollis, or soft portion. See ANATOMY. AVENA, in botany, oat-grass; class Triandria Digynia; natural order, Gramina. Generic character: calyx, glume generally many-flowered, two-valved, loosely collecting the flowers; valves lanceolate, acute, ventricose, loose, large, awnless; corolla two-valved; lower valve harder than the calyx; the size of the calyx roundish, ventricose, acuminate at both ends, emitting from the back an awn, spirally twisted, reflex; nectary two-leaved; leaflets lanceolate, gibbous at the base; stamina filaments three, capillary; anthers oblong, forked; pistil. germ obtuse styles two, reflex, hairy; stigma simple; pericarp none; corolla most firmly closed, grows to the seed and does not gape; seed one, slender, oblong, accuminate at both ends, marked with a longitudinal furrow. There are many species, of which we notice A. sativa, cultivated oat. Of this there are four varieties, the white, black, brown, or red, and the blue bat; panicled; calyxes two-seeded; seeds very smooth, one-awned; annual; culm or straw upwards of two feet high; panicle various in different varieties, but always loose and pendulous; the two glumes or chaffs of the calxy are marked with lines, pointed at the end, longer than the flower, and unequal; there are usually two flowers, and seeds in each calyx; they are alternate, conical, the smaller one is awnless, the larger puts forth a strong, two-coloured, bent awn, from the middle of the back. No botanist has been able to ascertain satisfactorily the native place of growth of this, or indeed of any other sort of grain now com monly cultivated in Europe. The varieties mentioned above have been long known, and others have been introduced, as the Poland, the Friesland or Dutch, and the Siberian or Tartarian oat. The blue oat is probably what is called Scotch greys. The white sort is most common about London, and those countries where the inhabitants live much upon oat-cakes, as it makes the whitest meal. The black is more cultivated in the northern parts of England, as it is esteemed a hearty food for horses. The red oat is much cultivated in Derbyshire, Staffordshire, and Cheshire; it is a very hardy sort, and gives a good increase. The straw is of a brownish red colour, very heavy, and esteemed better food for horses than either of the former sorts. In Lincolnshire they cultivate the sort called the Scotch greys. The Poland oat has a short plump grain, but the thickness of the skin seems to have brought it into disrepute among farmers. Add to this the straw is very short. It was sown by Mr. Lisle in 1709. Friesland or Dutch oat affords more straw, and is thinner skinned, and the grains mostly double. A white oat, called the potatoe oat in Cumberland, where it was lately discovered, promises, from the size of the grain and the length of the straw, to be the most valuable we possess; it is now very generally bought for sowing. The oat is a very profitable grain, and a great improvement to many estates in the North of England, Scotland, and Wales; for it will thrive in cold barren soils, which will produce no other sort of grain; it will also thrive on the hottest land; in short, there is no soil too rich or too poor, too hot or too cold for it; and in wet harvests, when other grain is spoiled, this will receive little or no damage. The meal of this grain makes a tolerably good bread, and is the common food of the country people in the north. It is also esteemed for pottage and other messes, and in some places they make beer with it. The best time for sowing oats is in February or March, according as the season is early or late. The black and red oats may be sown a month earlier than the white, because they are hardier. The advantage of early sowing is proved by experiment. White oats sown the last week in May have produced seven quarters the acre; and in Hertfordshire they do not sow them till after they have done sowing barley, which is found to be a good practice; this oat being more tender than the others. Mr. Marshall mentious the blowing of the sallow as a direction for the sowing of this grain. He says, "most people allow four bushels of oats to an acre, but I am convinced that three bushels are more than enough; the usual produce is about 25 bushels to an acre, though I have sometimes known more than 30." But 40 bushels and more are certainly no unusual crop. AVERAGE, in commerce, signifies the accidents and misfortunes which happen to ships and their cargoes, from the time of their loading and sailing to their return and unloading; and is divided into three kinds: 1. The simple or particular average which consists in the extraordinary expenses incurred for the ship alone, or for the merchandizes alone. Such is the loss of anchors, masts, and rigging, occasioned by the common accidents at sea; the damages which happened to merchandize by storm, prize, shipwreck, wet, or rotting; all which must be borne and paid by the thing which suffered the damage. 2. The large and common average being those expenses incurred, and damages sustained for the common good and security both of the merchandizes and vessels, consequently to be borne by the ship and cargo, and to be regulated upon the whole. Of this number are the goods or money given for the ransom of the ship and cargo, things thrown over-board for the safety of the ship, the expenses of unlading for entering into a river or harbour, and the provisions and hire of the sailors when the ́ship is put under an embargo. 3. The smali ́averages which are the expenses for towing and pilotting the ship out, off, or into harbours, creeks, or rivers, one third of which must be charged to the ship, and two-thirds to the cargo. Average is more particularly used for a certain contribution that merchants make proportionably towards their losses. It also signifies a small duty which those merchants who send goods in another man's ship pay to the master for his care of them, over and above the freight. Hence it is expressed in the bills of lading, paying so much freight for the said goods with primage and average accustomed. AVERRHOA, in botany, a genus of the Decandria Pentagynia class of plants, whose flower consists of five lanceolated petals, the fruit is an apple of a turbinated and obtuse pentagonal figure, containing five cells, wherein are disposed angular seeds, separated by membranes. There are two species, trees, natives only of India, and other warm parts of Asia: singular for the fruit growing frequently on the trunk itself, below the leaves. The flower resembles that of the geranium; but the fruit is totally different : it is a poma, five-celled, and containing many seeds. The A. bilimbi is described as a beautiful tree, with green flesh fruit, filled with a grateful acid juice: the substance and seeds not unlike those of a cucumber: it grows from top to bottom, at all the knots and branches. A syrup is made of the juice, and a conserve of the flowers. AVES, birds, the name of the second class of animals, according to the Linnæan system. They have been described as animals having a body covered with feathers and down; jaws protracted and naked: two wings, formed for flight, and two feet. They are aereal, vocal, swift, and light, and destitute of external ears, lips, teeth, scrotum, womb, bladder, epiglottis, corpus callosum and its arch, and diaphragm.The feathers are disposed over each other in the form of a quincunx, intermixed with down, distinct from the quill and tail feathers, convex above, concave beneath, narrower on the outside, lax at the fore-end, hollow and horny at the base, with a central pith, and furnished on each side the elongated shaft with parallel, approximate, distinct, and flat lamina, composing the vane; they vary in colour according to age, sex, season, or climate, except the quill and tail feathers, which are more constant and chiefly characteristic. The eggs are various in number, size, and colour, but always covered with calcareous shell, deposited in an artificial nest, and hatched by the genial warmth of the parent. The body is oval, terminated by a heart-shaped rump, and furnished all over with aereal receptacles communicating with the lungs or throat, necessary for flight or song, and which may be filled or emptied at pleasure; the rump has two glands, secreting an unctuous fluid, which is pressed out by the bill to anoint the discomposed parts of the feathers; the bill is horny, extending from the head, either hooked at the end for tearing the prey, or slender for searching in the mire, or flat and broad for gobbling; and is used for building nests, feeding the young, climbing, or as an instrument of offence and defence; eyes lateral, furnished with orbits, and nictitant membrane; ears truncate without auricles; wings compressed, consisting of moveable joints, and covered with quills and feathers; legs placed usually near the centre of gravity, with toes and claws of various shapes ; tail serving as the rudder or director of the body, they are mostly monogamous, or live in single pairs, and migrate into milder climates, upon defect of food or warmth, and a few become torpid in winter. The generic characters are taken from the bill, tongue, nostrils, ceræ, caruncles, and other naked parts. See Plate I. Aves. Fig. 1. a. Spurious or bastard wings; b. lesser coverts of the wings, which are small feathers that lie in several rows on the bones of the wings; c. greater wing coverts or feathers that lie immediately over the quill feathers; d. scapulars, which take their rise from the shoulders, and cover the sides of the back; e. primary quill-feathers, that rise from the first bone; f. secondary quillfeathers, or those that rise from the second bone; g. tertials, which likewise take their rise from the second bone, forming a continuation of the secondaries, and seem to do the same with the scapulars that lie over them; these feathers are so long in some of the scolopax and tringa genera, that when the bird is flying, they give it the appearance of having four wings; h. rump; i. tail-coverts; k. tail-feathers; 7. shoulders; m. crown; n, front; o. bind-head; p. nape; q. chin; r. throat; s. scrag or neck above; t. interscapular region; u. vent. Fig. 2. a. Upper mandible; b. lower mandible; c. a tooth-like process; d. frontlet; e. front; f. crown; g. hind-head; h. nape; i. lores; k. temples; l. cheeks; m. chin; n. bristles at the base of the bill. Fig. 3. a. A bill with the upper mandible hooked at the point, and furnished with a tooth-like process; b. the cere or naked skin which covers the base of the bill, and in which are placed the nostrils; c. orbits, or skin, which surrounds the eye: it is generally barve, but particularly in the parrot and herou. Fig. 4. A flat bill pectinate at the edges, and furnished at the tip with a claw or nai!. Fig. 5. A foot formed for perching, having three toes before and one behind. Fig. 6. A walking foot, having a spur on the heel. Fig. 7. A climbing foot, having two toes before and two behind. Fig. 8. A palmate or webbed foot. Fig. 9. A semi-palmate or half-webbed foot. Fig. 10. A pinnate or finned foot. There are six orders of birds, each of which contains several genera that will be noticed in their proper places. The orders are 1. Accipitres or rapacious kind, 3. Anseres or duck kind. We may observe with regard to this class of animals, the admirable contrivances throughout the whole of their structure, for promoting their boyancy in air, for enabling them to move with celerity, and for directing their course. Their covering is of the lightest kind; yet the down with which they are supplied under their feathers is the warmest that could be devised; for in consequence of the air entangled as it were in its interstices, it is one of the slowest conductors of heat. The outer feathers, by their slanting disposition, and their natural oiliness, form a complete shelter to the body from wet; and the hollow structure of the wing feathers, by increasing their bulk without increasing their weight, renders them more buoyant in the air. The whole form of the body is adapted to its flying with ease and celerity; the small head and sharp bill for diminishing the resistance of the air; the greater muscular strength, as well as an expansion of the wings, for impelling its body forward with celerity; and the broad feathers of the tail, moveable in almost every direction, for steering its course like the rudder of a ship. The disposition of the lungs along the back-bone, and their communications with the cells in the bones of the wings, thighs, and breast, by admitting air in almost every part of the body, increases the buoyancy of the whole, and enables the bird to exist longer without breathing, which must be in a great measure impeded, if not suspended, during some of its rapid flights. It has been observed, that the brilliancy of the plumage in the feathered tribe is only to be looked for in the warmer regions of Asia and Africa; but whoever has seen the beautiful king-fisher dart along the shaded brook, cannot allow that our own country has nothing to boast in the brilliancy of its birds. The crimson crown and variety of colours of the great woodpecker, the beautiful bars of black, blue, and white on the greater wing-coverts of the jay, and the elegant plumage of the pheasant, as well as the extreme beauty of the roller, and the Bohemian chatterer, |