forms tortuous galleries within the skin. These galleries resemble the mark which is formed when a pen is drawn lightly over the skin without causing

3

Itch-Mite:

1, abdominal view of female itch-mite, magnified 65 diameters; 2, one of its mandibles, magnified 65 diameters; 3, mandible of male sugar-mite, magnified 390 diameters.

the most important are the Itineraria Antonini and the Itinerarium Hierosolymitanum. The Itineraria Antonini are two in number, the Itinerarium provinciarum and the Itinerarium marinum, the former containing the routes through the Roman provinces in Europe, Asia, and Africa; and the latter the principal routes of navigators, who then sailed only along the coasts. They take their name from Antoninus Caracalla, by whom they were published, as corrected up to his time, but they seem to have been originally prepared at an earlier date.-The Itinerarium Hierosolymitanum was drawn up 333 A.D., for the use of pilgrims from Burdigala (Bordeaux) to Jerusalem. Of these itineraries, various editions have been published.

females.

There are numerous species of itch-mite (Sar. coptes) which infest the lower animals. One of them (S. canis) produces Mange (q. v.) in dogs; another (S. equi), a comparatively large species, sometimes occurs in horses; another (S. bovis) in oxen in some parts of Europe; another (S. ovis) in sheep. Some of these are occasionally transferred to human beings, and cause irritation and annoyance, which, however, seems to be limited to the life of the individual mites transferred, the situation not being congenial enough for their increase.

For further information on the structure and habits of this animal, the reader is referred to the second volume of Küchenmeister's work on Parasites (translated for the Sydenham Society), and to Bourguignon's treatise.

ITH'ACA (now THIAKI), one of the Ionian Islands (q. v.), and the smallest of them except Paro. It lies 17 miles west of the mainland of Greece, and 2 miles north of Cephalonia. The surface is mountainous, but there are many pleasant valleys. Length, 15 miles; breadth, 4; area, about 44 square miles. It was celebrated among the ancients as the principality and home of Ulysses; and some Cyclopean ruins near Porto Molo are called by the islanders the ruins of the Castle of Ulysses. In 1871, the population of the island was about 13,000, of whom about 2500 were in the town of Vathi, its seaport and capital.

I'THACA, a village in the state of New York, America, at the southern extremity of Cayuga Lake, 162 miles west-by-south from Albany. It has a large trade in coal, and 30 mills and manufactories. Pop. (1870) 10,107.

ITINERARY (Lat. itinerarium, derived from iter, a journey), the name given by the Romans to a table of the stages between two places of importance, with the distances from one to another. The itineraries of the ancients contribute much to our acquaintance with ancient geography. Of these,

The

1817. The books were assorted to the extent of 50 volumes in a box. At first, there were four boxes; and as the time allowed for each was two years at a village, the inhabitants of four villages had the perusal of 200 volumes in the space of eight years, undertaking was begun and locally superintended at one-fourth the expense of the whole. from motives of benevolence, and the books were supplied gratuitously. The success attending this economic method of establishing libraries in a country district, led to its extension over a wider sphere, on the principle of readers paying a small sum per annum, also of forming the assortments of books from the used new works in a central

subscription library. There are several itinerating divisions in use in East Lothian and other parts of Scotland, as also in England, and 12 divisions were some time ago transmitted to Jamaica, where they were to be under the charge of missionaries. From all that can be gathered, the establishment of libraries of this simple class proves a valuable auxiliary to schools, churches, and other agencies of social improvement. For a variety of particulars on the subject, see a small volume, Some Account of Itinerating Libraries and their Founder (Edin. 1856).

Holstein, and the oldest in the duchy, is situated on ITZEHOE, a town of Denmark, in the duchy of the Stör, in a valley backed by finely wooded hills, about 50 miles by water north-west of Hamburg. Tobacco, chicory, sugar, and brandy, are manufactured, and important horse and cattle markets are held here. I. also carries on a considerable general trade by water with Altona and Hamburg. Pop. 6691.

The original castle around which I. gradually arose was built by Charlemagne in 809. I. was twice taken by Tilly in the Thirty Years' War, and in 1657 a great portion of it was burned down by the Swedes.

I'VAN, or I'WAN (the Russian form of John), the name of a number of Russian czars.-IVAN f (1462-1505) may be regarded as the founder of the Russian empire. He was at first only Grand Duke

661

height. The flowers are on a crowded spadix, and have neither calyx nor corolla. The fruit, which is as large as a man's head, consists of many 4-celled leathery drupes aggregated together, and contains numerous nuts of a somewhat triangular form, each nut being nearly as large as a hen's egg; they are called Corrozzo nuts in commerce. The kernels of these nuts when ripe are exceedingly hard and white, in fact they resemble ivory so completely that few names have ever been better applied than that of vegetable ivory. They have of late come into extensive use by turners in the manufacture of buttons, umbrella-handles, and small trinkets, and so closely resemble true ivory as frequently to deceive competent judges. Two or three millions of these nuts are now imported annually, and are chiefly used by the London and Birmingham turners.

IVORY-BLACK. See BONE-BLACK.

IVRE'A, a town of Piedmont, and capital of a province of the same name, has a population of 10,519, and is situated on the left bank of the Dora Baltea, partly on level ground and partly on an eminence exposed to the sirocco winds. The cathedral is supposed to have been a temple of Apollo, and contains an ancient sepulchral monument of the age of Augustus. The carnival of I. is famed for its picturesque allegorical pageants.

IVRY-SUR-SEINE, a manufacturing town of France, in the department of Seine, is situated on the left bank of the river of that name, three miles above Paris. Glass, earthenware, and chemical products are the chief manufactures. Pop. (1872) 11,176. IVY (Hedera), a genus of plants of the natural order Araliaceae, consisting of shrubs and trees, mostly natives of tropical countries. The flowers have five or ten petals, and five or ten converging or consolidated styles. The fruit is a berry with five or ten cells.-The COMMON IVY (H. helix) is a well-known native of Britain, and of most parts of Europe, although it is more rare in the northern countries. Its long, creeping, branched stem, climbing on trees and walls to a great height, and closely adhering even to very hard substances by means of rootlets which it throws out in great abundance along its whole length, acquires in very aged plants almost the thickness of a small tree. Its 5-lobed, shining, stalked, evergreen leaves, clothing bare walls with green luxuriance, serve to throw off rain, whilst the rootlets of the stem suck out the moisture, so as to render damp walls dry, contrary to a common prejudice, that ivy tends to produce dampness in

contain a peculiar bitter principle called hederine, and an acid called hederic acid; which are also found in a gummy exudation obtained by incisions from the stem, and occasionally used in medicine as a depilatory and a stimulant, and in varnish-making. An ointment made from the leaves is used in the Highlands of Scotland to cure burns. In Egypt, the ivy was sacred to Osiris, in Greece to Bacchus (Dionysos), whose thyrsus was represented as surrounded with ivy; the Romans mingled it in the laurel crowns of their poets.

There are several varieties of ivy often planted for ornamental purposes, of which that generally known in Britain as Irish Ivy, and on the continent as English Ivy, is particularly esteemed for its large leaves and luxuriant_growth. It is said to be a native of the Canary Isles. Ivy grows readily from cuttings.-H. umbellifera, a native of Amboyna, is said to produce a finely aromatic wood; and H. terebinthacea, a Ceylonese species, yields a resinous substance which smells like turpentine.

663

THE tenth letter in our alphabet, has in Eng. the power of dzh; in Fr., of zh; and in Ger. of y. Both the sound and the character have sprung out of the original vowel i. When such a word as Iulius is pronounced rapidly, it naturally slides into Yulius. The Romans, though they had but one character for both, recognised this distinction between the vowel and the semi-vowel; and in the case of such words as cuius, maius, some writers doubled the i, and wrote one or both long, as cullus or cuilus. There is little doubt that the original Roman sound of this semi-vowel was that of Eng. y (youth), still given to it in German. But as this sound has a tendency to convert the consonant preceding it into a sibilant (see letter C), so it has a tendency to become itself sibilant, and Yul- slides into Fr. zhul-, Eng. dzhul-. This transition had already taken place in the later ages of the Latin, at all events, in the popular pronunciation, as appears from such inscriptions as congiunta, for conjuncta; Zesu, for Jesu.

It was the Dutch scholars of the 16th and 17th centuries that first introduced a regular distinction between the consonantal and vowel powers of i, and marked the former by the distinct character j (a long, projecting below the line). The character has been adopted in the modern Teutonic and Romanic languages, with the exception of Italian, which represents the sound by gi or ggi, as Giovanni, from Lat. Johannes; maggiore, from Lat. maior. In Span., it has a guttural power, and is interchangeable with x, as Xeres, or Jeres.

JA'BIRU (Mycteria), a genus of birds of the same

widely distributed in South America, Africa, and Australia.

JABUTICABA. See EUGENIA.

JA'CANA (Parra), a genus of birds of the order Gralla, commonly ranked in the family Rallido, natives of the warm parts of Asia and the Asiatic islands, Africa, and South America. In general appearance, they much resemble gallinules and coots. The feet, though not webbed, are adapted, by the great length of the toes and claws, for walking on the surface of weed-covered lakes and swamps, the native haunts of these birds, where they never fail to attract the attention of the traveller. The COMMON J. (P. Jacana) is a South American

family with storks and adjutants; the chief distinction from the storks being that the bill is a little curved upwards. The species are few, but are

Common Jacana (Parra Jacana).

species, abundant in Guiana and Brazil. It is about ten inches long; black, except the back and part of the wings, which are of a bright chesnut colour. The INDIAN J. (P. Indica) and the CHINESE J. (P. Sinensis) are also among the best known species. Both are found in India and other parts of the East.

JACARA'NDA WOOD, a very hard, heavy, brown wood, also called Rosewood, from its faint agreeable smell of roses. It is brought from South America, and is produced by several trees of the genus Jacaranda, of the natural order Bignoniacea. Several species of this genus are called Caroba in Brazil, and are there accounted anti-syphilitic.Several species of the nearly allied genus Tecoma also have an extremely hard wood, as T. pentaphylla, a native of the Caribbean Islands. The Brazilian Indians make their bows of the wood of T. toxiphora or Pao d'arco.

JACK. The Jewish Jacobus was corrupted through Jacquemes to Jaques in France, and James in England; and Jaques being the commonest Christian name in the former country, was used as

a contemptuous expression for a common man. Jacquerie, an insurrection of the peasants. The introduction of the word in the same sense into England seems to have led to the use of Jack as the familiar synonyme of John, which happened to be here the commonest name, as Jaques in France. The term was then applied to any mechanical contrivance for replacing the personal service of an attendant, or to an implement subjected to rough and familiar usage.'-Wedgewood's Dictionary of English Etymology. This will be found to explain the very varied use of this word, whether single or in composition; as boot-jack, jack-boots, blackjack (a leathern jug for household service). Jacket (the diminutive of Jack) is a short coat for homely

use.

JACK, JAK, or JACA (Artocarpus integrifolia), a tree of the same genus with the Bread-fruit (q. v.), a native of the East Indies. It is a larger tree than the Bread-fruit, and has undivided leaves. The fruit is very large, weighing from five to fifty, sometimes seventy pounds. The fruit, which is produced in very great abundance, resembles the bread-fruit, but is of very inferior quality, the pulp having a strong unpleasant flavour; yet it forms great part of the food of the natives in some parts of India, Ceylon, &c. The seeds, which lie immediately under the rind, are very palatable when roasted. The timber, which is yellowish, is used for almost every purpose, being both strong and ornamental, and is imported into Britain for making musical instruments, cabinet-work, the backs of brushes, marqueterie floors, &c. The J. is now much planted in many tropical countries of which

it is not a native.

JACK-A-LANTERN. See IGNIS FATUUS.

JACKAL (corrupted from Sp. and Fr. chacal), the common name of a number of species and varieties of the dog genus, abounding in many parts of Asia and Africa, but not found in any of the other quarters of the globe, except that one of the kinds extends into Greece. They agree in all their most important characters with wolves and dogs, and many naturalists suppose that some of the domestic varieties of dog are of jackal parentage. The pupil of the eye is circular, as in the dog and wolf, although the form and tail are somewhat foxlike. The head is narrow, and the muzzle pointed. The ears are erect, and rather large. The tail is not so long as in foxes, but is almost equally bushy. All the jackals are of small size, as compared with

Jackal (Canis aureus).

wolves, seldom exceeding 15 inches in height at the shoulder. Their colours are buff and tawny, more or less grizzled; the tip of the tail is always dark. They make holes for themselves in the ground by burrowing, or take possession of such as already exist among rocks or ruins; and in these they spend the day, not venturing abroad till the dusk of evening. They hunt during the night in troops,

·

and their howlings are described by all who have heard them as peculiarly horrible. The notion that the J. is the lion's provider, and guides the royal beast to his prey, is one of the exploded fables of natural history, although it may have some founda. tion in the lion's occasionally following a troop of jackals in full cry, and appropriating the lion's share.' Jackals are not only ready to devour any animal which they can run down, but any carrion which they may meet with. They follow armies ; they dig up the ill-buried dead; they rob hen-roosts and outhouses; but they are as omnivorous as domestic dogs, eating farinaceous or other vegetable food when it comes in their way; they are even said, like foxes, to enter vineyards, and devour the grapes. They have a very offensive smell, which, tion, and they are domesticated without difficulty. however, is said to diminish through domesticaThe name of COMMON J. is sometimes given to the species (Canis aureus) which is found in the western parts of Asia, and which is in general yellowish gray above, and whitish below, with yellow legs and thighs. But it is doubted if this animal was in ancient times plentiful, as it is now, in Syria and neighbouring parts of Asia. It is thought not improbable that it may have followed the track of armies from the farther east. It is pretty certain that it has, in comparatively modern times, become common in parts of Asia more northern than it formerly inhabited. It is not improbable, however, that it is included under the name fox in the Hebrew Scriptures.

JA'CKASS, LAUGHING (Dacelo gigantea), a bird of the Kingfisher family (Halcyonidae), and sometimes described in works on natural history as the Great Brown Kingfisher. It agrees very nearly with the kingfishers in its form and characters, but differs from them in its habits, not frequenting waters, nor feeding on fish, but preying on beetles, reptiles, and small mammalia. It is about eighteen inches long, and mostly of a brown colour. It is a common bird in Australia, and has received its English name from the colonists, on account of the peculiar sounds which it utters. The natives call it Gogobera, apparently in imitation of its cry. of great use in preventing the excessive multiplication of reptiles and other pests. Its bill is powerful enough to crush the heads of snakes. It is easily tamed, and is sometimes kept in gardens, from which it does not seek to escape.

It is

JACK-BOOTS, tall boots of tough thick leather, reaching above the knee, and formerly worn by cavalry. In some instances, as an additional protection against sword-cuts, they were lined with thin plates of iron. The only regiments in the British service which still retain these handsome but cumbrous boots are the Life Guards and Royal Horse Guards. See Boots.

JA'CKDAW (Corvus monedula), a species of crow, smaller than the rook and carrion crow, its utmost length being only about fourteen inches. It is black, with dark-gray neck. It is a common British bird, and is plentiful also in some parts of continental Europe, Asia, and the north of Africa. It is not found in America. It builds its nest in holes of cliffs, ruins, &c. It frequents towns and villages, often making its nest in a chimney, by dropping down stick after stick till some of them become fixed in their oblique descent; and on these, others are piled, affording a firm base for a nest of wool or other soft substance. The J. lays from four to seven (usually five) bluish-white eggs, which are covered with dark-brown spots. Marvellous instances are recorded of the quantity of sticks employed to form a jackdaw's nest, in situations