FRIGATE 



calls it the /.ophorus ( ' life-hearing ') from its being 

 frequently ornamented with sculpture. Similarly, 

 the term frie/e U sometimes applied to any enriched 

 hori/ontal band. 



FIJ1SIANS 



I 



( Fr. fiT>/ate, Ital. Jrnjntn ), formerly a 

 long, narrow vessel propelled by oars ninl sails, u-cd 

 in I lie Mediterranean DM occasions when speed was 

 !<. (iii-iti-. The name then came to \- applied to 

 men-of-war, of a class smaller tlian line-of-liattle 

 ships, and carrying from twenty to fifty guns, 

 whidi wore distributed on the main and upper 

 decks. They were employed in the great wars of 

 t lie 18tli and early part of the 19th centuries, as 

 xi -outs and cruisers. The frigate was usually swift, 

 easily managed, and capable of beating well to 

 windward. She became, therefore, the favourite 

 ship in war-time, and bore oil' a large proportion 

 of the pri/e- money. Frigates also serveu to obtain 

 information as to the movements of hostile Meets, 

 and to guide the sailing of their own ; but it was 

 unusual for them to join in the line of battle, their 

 exploits ordinarily occurring in engagements with 

 single ships of their own 01888. With steam and 

 the growth of the royal navy in later times 

 frigates were developed more than any other inen- 

 "i war, and many or the largest ships in the navy 

 belonged to this class, such as the iron-plated 

 \\'ui-rinr, of 0000 tons, three times the burden of 

 any ship of the line in Nelson's fleets. Now, how- 

 ever, these are all ships of the past, incapable of 

 contending with the turreted monsters which carry 

 modern artillery, and the name frigate itself has 

 disappeared from the Navu List, the term 'cruiser' 

 armoured or unarmoured having taken its place. 

 This is true also of the United States navy. 



Frigate Bird, or MAN-OF-WAR BIRD (Tachy- 

 /" /v.y aquila), a tropical marine bird, placed near 

 pelicans and cormorants in the order Stegano- 

 podes. In flight it is extremely powerful, and 

 makes use of its swiftness and strength to force 

 other birds to surrender their prey. The food con- 

 -ists of lish, which, if not stolen, are caught at the 

 surface. Flying-fish are said to form an important 

 constituent of its diet. It may be seen out at sea 

 100 miles from land, but nests and breeds on the 

 coasts of the tropical Atlantic and Pacific e.g. 

 off Honduras, where vast ' rookeries ' have been 

 described. The bird is large, measuring about 

 4 feet in length, with very long wings and tail. 



Frigate Bird ( Tachypetes aquUa). 



The beak is booked, and almost twice as long as 

 the head. The prevalent colour is brownish- 

 black ; the female has a white breast, and, like the 

 young birds, differs in minor points from the adult 

 male. In some parts it is said to become half- 

 tame, and even to be available for letter-carrying. 



i" northern mythology, the wife of 

 Odin, who seems to have occupied an analogous 

 position to that of Venus in I Ionian mythology. 

 She was also the goddess of the earth and of 

 marriage, and was frequently confounded, and 

 latterly quite identified, with Freyja (q.v.). She 

 was the only Scandinavian deity placed amongst 

 the stars; Orion's he.lt in called in Swedish Frigga'tJ 

 distalf. From her Friday takes its name. 



Frilled Lizard. See CHLAMYUOSAURUS. 



Fringe Tree (Chionanthus), a genus of 

 Oleacea-, of which the common sjiecies or Fringe 

 Tree or Snowllower (C. ririjiinrn ), found in the 

 United States from 39 lat. to the Gulf of Mexico, 

 is a large shrub with very numerous snow-white 

 flowers in panicled racemes. The limb of the 

 corolla is divided into four long linear segment*, 

 whence the name fringe tree. The fruit is an oval 

 drupe. The tree is frequently cultivated as an 

 ornamental plant. The root bark is narcotic. 



Fringillid:e. See FINCH. 



Frisrlies llafl* ( ' Fresh-water Bay '), a lagoon 

 on the coast of Prussia, south-east of the Gulf of 

 Danzig, about 50 miles in length, 4 to 11 miles 

 broad, and 332 sq. m. in area. It was once entirely 

 walled off from the Baltic by a narrow spit of 

 land, through which a passage, 1247 feet wide and 

 14i feet deep, was cut in 1510 during a violent 

 storm. The Half is 10 to 16 feet deep. 



Frisians, a people of Teutonic stock, who, 

 Tacitus says, when the Romans first came into 

 contact with them, occupied the maritime region 

 extending from the Scheldt to the Ems and Weser. 

 They submitted to the Roman power in the reign 

 of Drusus, and were loyal and helpful tributaries 

 until stung into revolt in 28 A.D. by the extortions 

 of a Roman provincial officer. From that time 

 onwards they rendered only sullen submission to 

 the empire, and more than once revolted and 

 maintained their independence for some years. 

 They were sea-rovers, as well as herdsmen and 

 husbandmen, and took part along with the Angles 

 and Saxons in the conquest of Britain. We next 

 read of them as offering a stubborn resistance 

 not only to the introduction of Christianity, but 

 also to the encroachments of the Prankish power 

 from the south ; in fact, in spite of the efforts 

 of Wilfrid of York, the first missionary among 

 the Frisians, and his successors Willibrord anu 

 Boniface, the Christian religion does not seem 

 to have obtained footing in Frisia beyond the 

 actual limits of Prankish dominion until the com- 

 plete absorption of the Frisians' land in the empire 

 of Charlemagne. In the meantime they had waged 

 an almost continuous war against the Franks. 

 Their king Radbod, although driven out of western 

 Frisia (from the Scheldt to the Zuider Zee) in 689 

 by Pepin, so far turned the tables after the death 

 of this king that he sailed up the Rhine to Cologne, 

 and defeated Charles Martel, in 716. Their last 

 independent prince, Poppo, was defeated and slain 

 by Charles Martel in T.'U, and the conquest of the 

 Frisians was completed by Charlemagne. At the 

 partition of the Prankish empire made at Verdun in 

 843 Frisia became part of Lotlmringia or Lorraine. 

 In 911, however, when Lotharingia seceded from 

 the eastern to join the western Prankish empire, 

 the districts of eastern Frisia (from the Zuider 

 Zee to the Weser) asserted their independence, 

 and formed themselves into a sort of democratic 

 confederated republic, until in the first half of 

 the 15th century they became virtually a count- 

 ship, being ruled by the dynasty of the Cirksena 

 down to the extinction of the family in 1744, when 

 Prussia took possession of it. Meanwhile the 

 western half of Frisia had for the most part been 

 absorbed in the bishopric of Utrecht and the 



