GHOST-MOTH 



GIANT8 



199 



(host-moth (Ili'fiinlnti Itiuniili), a species of 

 \i-ry i-oniiiioii in many parts of Britain, of 

 \\lii.-li tin- caterpillar, popularly known as the 

 ' Otter,' of Km commit* great ravages in hop gardens, 

 devouring the roots of tin- plants. It feeds also 

 on tin- root-, of the nettle, himlock, and some 

 other plaittH. The moth belong to a small family 

 (Hepialidie), often popularly called Swift* froiu 



Ghobt-moth (ffepialua huimtli) : 

 caterpillar (a) and chrysalis ( 6 ). 



their rapid flight. The antennae are short, the 

 wings long and narrow, the entire size about two 

 inches across. The male is entirely of a satiny 

 white colour alove, and the female yellowish and 

 reddish with darker markings ; both sexes are 

 brown on the under side. 'Ihey are to be seen 

 flying about in the twilight, generally over lawns 

 and pastures, not unfrequently in churchyards. 

 From this circumstance, and from the white 

 colour of the limit's and their sudden disappearance 

 in the imperfect light on their folding their wings 

 or rising above the level of the spectator's eye (so 

 that the brown part is turned towards him ), they 

 derive their name. The caterpillar, which is some- 

 tinics two inches long, is yellowish-white, with 

 scattered hairs. It spins a large cylindrical cocoon 

 among the roots on which it has been feeding, and 

 then beoomea a chrysalis. Two other common 

 species of generally similar habit are H. lupulinus 

 and H. hectus. 



Ghosts. See APPARITIONS. 

 4. ho nl. See VAMPIRE. 



4>hlir. or GHORE, a mountainous district of 

 Avestern Afghanistan, lying south-east from Herat 

 and north-west from Kandahar. Roughly speak- 

 ing, it coincides with the ancient Paropamisus and 

 the medieval Gharshistan. It is a region, however, 

 about which next to nothing is known, except that 

 it is inhabited by Haxaras and Eimaks, and since 

 1845 has been included in the territory of Herat. 



GHURI, a dynasty of princes who had the seat 

 of their empire in the country of Ghflr, and ruled 

 over Persia, Afghanistan, northern Hindustan, and 

 Transoxiana. We first read of Gliur in connection 

 with Mahmud of Ghazni and hi son Masaud, the 

 latter of whom subjugated the region in 1020. About 

 a century later Malik Izzuddin made himself ruler 

 of all the Ghflr country. His son, Alauddin 

 Jahansoz (the Burner), fell upon Ghazni, and 

 took it and burned it to the ground. This prince's 

 iit'l>!it-\vs, Ghiyassuddin and Muizuddin, established 

 their power in Khorasan and Ghazni. The latter, 

 crossing the Indus, then conquered successively the 



province* of Mill tan (1176), Lahore (1186). and 

 Ajmere (1100), and, in the coone of the next six 

 years, all Hindustan a* far Mouth an Nagpur and 

 eastward to the Irawudi. It u from thm epoch 

 that the prapOBdmBM of Islam in Hindustan w 

 dated. On the <l<-atli of .Miii/mldin the Indian 

 states itsM-iU'il their independence, the |M>wer of 

 tli'- (Jhuri Ix-inx roiiHm-d to (ilnir, Keifttan, and 

 Herat. This last feeble remnant wan taken from 

 them by the Shah of Kliai'-xm about 1215. Borne 

 thirty years later the Ghur princen managed to 

 revive something of their former ]H>\M-I at Herat, 

 which they retained by HII iterance from the Mongols 

 down to 1383, when the city was captured by Timur, 

 and the Ghflr sovereignty came to an end. 



Giailibelli, FKDERIUO, a military engineer, 

 born at Mantua about 1530. During the siege of 

 Antwerp by the Spaniards in 1585 he destroyed, 

 by means of an explosive ship, a bridge built by 

 the latter across the Scheldt. Proceeding to Eng- 

 land on the capitulation of Antwerp, he rendered 

 great service in the preparations for resisting the 

 Armada of 1588, by fortifying the Thames shore 

 and devising the plan of sending the fire-ships into 

 the enemy's fleet. He is said to have died in 

 London, but when is not known. 



Crianno'ne, PIETRO, an Italian antipapal his- 

 torian, was born 7th May 1676, at Iscnitella, a 

 village of Capitanata, in Naples. A barrister by 

 profession, practising at Naples, he spent twenty 

 years in the composition of a magnum opu, 

 entitled Storia Civile del Regno di Napoli (4 vols. 

 1723). It led to his banishment; he took refuge 

 at Vienna, Venice, and Geneva successively. 

 Whilst at Geneva he published a bitter attack upon 

 the papal pretensions in a work entitled // Triregno. 

 Then, heing decoyed into Savoy in 1736, he was 

 arrested and confined at Turin until his death, 

 7th March 1748. A collection of Ojtere Post nine 

 appeared after his death (Lausanne, 1760); and in 

 1859 Mancini issued his Opere Inedite (2 vols. 

 Turin ). 



Giants. A giant (Gr. gigas) is an individual 

 whose stature and bulk exceed those of his species 

 or race generally. Until the beginning of the 19th 

 century it was universally believed that giants, of 

 a size far exceeding those who are exhibited in our 

 times, formerly existed, either as nations or as 

 individual specimens. This belief was based on 

 the asserted discovery of colossal human bones, 

 on supposed scriptural evidence, and on the evi- 

 dence ot various ancient and medieval authors. 



A reference to the first volume of Cuvier's 

 Ossements Fossiles will show that the bones of ele- 

 phants, rhinoceroses, mastodons, &c. have been 

 exhibited and accepted as evidence of prehistoric 

 giants. Even so good a naturalist as Button fell 

 into this popular delusion, and figured the bones 

 of an elephant as the remains of human giants. 

 Isidore Geofl'roy Saint- Hilaire, in his Hixtvirt det 

 Anomalies de 1 J Organisation, notices several of the 

 most famous of these oa>i--. 



The Scripture evidence, when carefully examined, 

 does not amount to much. The Hebrew words 

 iii'/ili Hi in and qibborim, which are translated giants 

 in the Authorised Version ( ' nephilim ' and ' mi-lit y 

 men' in the Revised Version), were apparently im't 

 giants in our sense of the word. The height of 

 Og, king of Bashan, is not given ; we are only told 

 the length of his bed. The neight of Goliath is put 

 at six and a half cubits, but by Josephus and the 

 Septuagint at four cubits and a span say 8 feet 9 

 inches. The Anakim and other tall races referred 

 to in Scripture need not have been of superhuman 

 size. 



The classical evidence is abundant, but obviously 

 untrustworthy. Thus, besides Homer's allusions U 



