PASSENGER PIGEON 



PASSIONISTS 



793 



Passenger Pigeon 

 (Ectopiitet miyratoriua). 



and in 739 was made the seat of a bishopric 

 founded by St Boniface. The town came into the 

 hands of Bavaria in 1803. It has important manu- 

 factures of leather, porcelain, and parquet-floors, 

 besides boats, metal- ware, and mirrors, and con- 

 siderable trade in salt, timber, corn, and Passau 

 tiles (made at Obernzell). Pop. (1890) 16,663. 



I'nssenger Pigeon (Ectopistes migrator ius}. 

 a species of pigeon, a native of North America. The 



genus to which 

 it belongs lias 

 the head small, 

 the bill short, 

 the tail very 

 long and wedge- 

 shaped, the 

 wings long and 

 pointed. The 

 male of the pas- 

 senger species 

 general 1 y 

 known in 

 North America 

 as the Wild 

 Pigeon, is about 

 164 inches lo 

 the tail increas- 

 ing the length 

 to 25 inches. 

 The colour is 

 grayish blue 

 above, breast 

 and sides red- 

 dish brown, rest 

 of the under parts white. The female is smaller 

 mid duller coloured than the male. They migrate 

 at irregular intervals in enormous Hocks (of many 

 millions at times) seeking for food, and are killed 

 in large numbers, their flesh being dark coloured, 

 but good eating. The passenger pigeon is found 

 throughout temperate North America. 



Pass'eres (Lat. passer, 'sparrow'), the name 

 piveii by Cuvier to the order of birds otherwise 

 called Insessorcs, comprising more than half of all 

 the birds. As the'ordcr has no well-marked char- 

 acters, sparrow-like or other, common to all its 

 ini-mlH-rs, neither name is prominent in newer 

 classifications. See BIRD, Vol. II. p. 173. 



Passionflower (Passiflora), a genus of plants 

 almost exclusively natives of the warm parts of 

 America, and belonging to the natural order Passi- 

 Horacete. The flowers are hermaphrodite, with a 

 coloured calyx, generally of five segments ; the 

 corolla also of live segments or wanting ; always 

 having a more or less conspicuous crown of filaments 

 springing from the throat of the tube formed by 

 UM base of the calyx and corolla. The stamens are 

 five, inserted in tlie tube of the calyx, united in a 

 tulie to near the apex, where they divide, ami ;ire 

 surmounted by the much reflexed anthers. The 

 ovary is one-celled, elevated on a stalk, surmounted 

 by three thick styles with thick clove-like stigmas. 

 The fruit is fleshy. This genus has received its 

 name from fanciful persons among the first Spanish 

 settlers in America imagining that they saw in its 

 (lowers the emblems or our Lord's passion ; the 

 filamentous processes being taken to represent the 

 crown of thorns, the nail-shaped styles the nails of 

 the cross, and the five anthers the marks of the 

 wounds. The species are mostly half-shrubby 

 evergreen or stove climliers, of rapid growth ; and 

 I them have lobed leaves, with from two to 

 seven lobes. The flowers of many are large and 

 beautiful, on which account they are often culti- 

 vated in hothouses. Some of the species are also 

 cultivated in tropical countries for their fruit, par- 

 ticularly those of which the fruit is known by the 



name Granadilla (q.v.). The apple-fruited Grana- 

 dilla or Sweet Calabash of the West Indies is the 

 fruit of P. malifomiis, which is about two inches in 

 diameter, containing within a hard stringy shell an 

 agreeable gelatinous pale yellow pulp. P. quud- 

 raiifjularis is the common Granadilla, a native of 

 Jamaica -and South America, but is cultivated in 

 all parts of tropical South America, and occa- 

 sionally in hot-houses in Britain for the sake of 

 its fruit. The fruit is oblong in shape, often six 

 inches in diameter transversely. The skin when 

 ripe is greenish yellow in colour, thin, but tough 

 and leathery, and contains a very succulent pulp of 

 a purple colour which is sweet and slightly acid. 

 It is generally eaten with wine and sugar. The 

 root of the plant is poisonous, owing to the presence 

 of an active principle called passiflorine, the pro- 

 perties of which are similar to morphine. The 

 laurel-leaved Granadilla is P. laurifolia, the fruit 

 of which is named Water-lemon by the English and 

 Pomme de Liane by the French in the West India 

 Islands. It grows to about the size of a hen's egg, 

 becomes yellow, dotted over with white when 

 ripe, and contains within the tough thin rind a- 

 whitish sweet watery pulp, delicately aromatic and 

 slightly acid. It quenches thirst, allays heat, and 

 induces appetite. P. incarnata, a species with 

 herbaceous stems, a native of the warm parts 

 of South Amer- 

 ica, produces an 

 edible orange- 

 coloured fruit 

 about the size 

 of an ordinary 

 apple. The fruit 

 of P. edulis is 

 about two inches 

 long and slightly 

 less in diameter, 

 assuming a livid 

 purple colour 

 when ripe, and 

 contains an 

 orange - coloured 

 pulp with the 

 flavour of a some- 

 what acid orange. 

 The fruit of some 

 species of pas- 

 sionflower, how- 

 ever, is not only 

 uneatable, but 

 fetid ; and the 

 roots, leaves, and 

 flowers of some 

 liave medicinal properties, narcotic, emmenagogue, 

 anthelmintic, febrifugal, &c. The hardiest species, 

 the Blue Passionflower (P. ccerulea), grows well 

 enough in some parts of France, and even in the 

 south of England. 



Passionists, a religious congregation of priests 

 of the Roman Catholic Church, the object of whose 

 nstitute, indicated by their name, is to preach 

 '.Irsiis Christ and him crucified.' The founder, St 

 Paul of the Cross, was bom in 1694 near Genoa, 

 >btained the sanction of Benedict XIV. in 1741, 

 and died at the mother-house of the society on the 

 Jcelian Hill at Koine in 1775. The cross appears 

 everywhere as their emblem, and a large crucifix 

 'orms part of their very striking costume. They 

 practise many personal austerities, and their 

 ministerial work consists chiefly in holding what 

 are called 'missions' wherever they are invited by 

 lie local clergy, in which sermons on the passion 

 of Christ, on sin, and on repentance, together with 

 he hearing of confessions, hold the principal 

 >laces. For a time the congregation remained in 

 obscurity ; but in the first half of the 19th century 



Passionflower (Passiflora ccerulea). 



