70 



CEPOLA 



CEREALIA 



Cepola. See BANDFISH. 



Ceram' (SERANG), the largest island of the 

 southern Moluccas, lies NE. of Amboyna, to which 

 Dutch residency it belongs, and is divided into 

 Great and Little Ceram by the Isthmus of Taruno. 

 Area, 6605 sq. m. ; pop. 195,000. The island is 

 one of the least explored in the archipelago, and 

 comparatively little is known of the interior, 

 which is, moreover, but scantily populated, the 

 great mass of the people, mostly native Alfuros 

 and immigrant Malays, inhabiting the coast 

 villages. Much of the island is very fertile. A 

 mountain-chain runs through the country, reach- 

 ing in Nusa Keli some 11,000 feet. The chief 

 exports are sago, iron, timber, earthenware, birds 

 of Paradise, dried fish, edible nests, &c. 



Ceramics ( Gr. keramos, ' potter's clay ' ), a term 

 used to designate the department of plastic art 

 which comprises all objects made of clay, such as 

 vases, cups, bassi-rilievi, cornices, and the like. See 

 POTTERY. 



Cerastes, or HORNED VIPER, a genus of 

 serpents of the family Viperidse, distinguished by a 

 broad depressed heart-shaped head, the scales of 

 which are similar to those of the back, and partic- 

 ularly remarkable for the development of one of 

 the scales of each eyelid into a spine or horn, often 

 of considerable length. The tail is very distinct 



Horned Viper (Cerastes vulgaris). 



from the body. This genus is exclusively African, 

 and very venomous. There is probably only one 

 species, Cerastes cegyptiacus or cornutiis, the Horned 

 Viper of the north of Africa, called Cerastes by 

 the ancients, the name being derived from the 

 Greek keras, ' a horn. ' It was correctly described 

 by the traveller Bruce, but his description was for 

 some time regarded with incredulity. 



Cerate (Lat. cera, 'wax'), a compound of wax 

 with other oily and medicinal substances in such 

 proportions as to have the consistence of an oint- 

 ment (see OINTMENTS). Simple cerate is made by 

 melting together 6 parts of olive-oil, 3 of white 

 wax, and 1 of spermaceti. 



CeratitCS, a genus of Ammonites (q.v.) 

 peculiar to, and characteristic of, the Trias. 



Cerat'odllS, the Queensland mud-fish, one of 

 the remarkable sub-class of double breathers or 

 Dipnoi. The name was originally used for the 

 fossil possessors of certain tooth-plates found in the 



Ceratodus. 



Triassic and Jurassic strata, and to this genus the 

 Queensland survivor, which has similar dental 

 arrangements, was referred when discovered in 1870. 

 Barra munda is the local name. The fish may 

 occasionally attain a length of six feet, has a later- 



ally compressed body with large scales, and pos- 

 sesses very unfish-like limbs with a central jointed 

 axis and lateral pieces. It lives in muddy water 

 often containing much decaying vegetable matter. 

 In this medium it does not find the gill-respiration 

 sufficient, and comes to the surface to take gulps of 

 air into the swimming-bladder, which functions as 

 a lung. It eats leaves and other parts of plants. 

 At nights Ceratodus sometimes leaves the water, 

 and moves along the river-bank. The expulsion 

 of air from its air-bladder or lung is supposed to 

 account for a grunting noise then often heard. 

 In the dry season it buries itself in the mud. 



Limb of Ceratodus. 



The flesh is much esteemed, and compared with 

 salmon. This interesting animal is discussed, in 

 its more technical relations, along with its neigh- 

 bour genera Lepidosiren and Protopterus under 

 the title MUD-FISHES. 



Ceratonia. See CAROB. 



Cer'berilS, in Greek Mythology, the many- 

 headed dog according to Hesiod, the offspring of 

 Typhaon and Echidna who guarded the portal of 

 the infernal regions. Later writers describe him as 

 only three-headed, with the tail and mane composed 

 of serpents, though the poets sometimes encumber 

 him with a hundred heads. Orpheus charmed him 

 by the magic of his lyre, and Hercules overcame 

 him by strength and dragged him to the upper 

 world. 



Cerca'ria, the technical name applied to an 

 embryonic form of many flukes. In all the two- 

 suckered flat parasitic Avorms (the Distomese 

 division of Trematodes ) the development is indirect 

 or circuitous. The eggs develop into embryos, 

 which, instead of growing into adults, produce 

 asexually one or more sets of intermediate forms. 

 The final form, produced more or less directly from 

 the embryo, is called a cercaria, and grows up into 

 the adult fluke. It differs from the adult in having 

 only rudiments of reproductive organs, in possessing 

 eye-spots, and in being (except in one genus) 

 equipped with a very movable tail. It is ( 1 ) born 

 within some host, such as a water-snail ; ( 2 ) leaves 

 this and swims freely in the water; (3) becomes 

 sluggish, and enters a second host, or fixes itself on 

 some foreign body. In this state it loses its tail 

 and encapsules itself, and does not experience any 

 further change till ( 4 ) it or its host is eaten by a 

 vertebrate, within which the cercaria becomes an 

 adult and sexual fluke. From the latter the em- 

 bryos which eventually enter the first-mentioned 

 host arise. Sometimes the life-history is simpler, 

 but in all cases the cercaria is the form produced 

 (generally indirectly) by the original embryo, and 

 developing into the adult. See FLUKE. 



Cercis. See JUDAS' TREE. 



Cercopithe'cus (Gr., ' tail-ape'), a genus of 

 monkeys. See MONKEY. 



Cere (in natural history). See BILL. 



Cerealia, or CEREAL GRASSES, so named 

 from Ceres (q.v.), are the plants which produce 

 grain or corn ; in strictness, all the species of 

 grasses ( Graminefe ) cultivated for the sake of their 

 seed as an article of food. They are also called 

 Corn-plants or Bread-plants; but in this wide 



