SPEAKER 



SPECIES 



613 



the part is again cool and free from pain an iodide 

 of mercury or fly-blister should be applied, and 

 the animal treated to three months' rest in a small 

 paddock, the end of a barn, or a roomy loose-box. 

 In persistent cases firing or setoning usually gives 

 much relief. 

 Speaker. See PARLIAMENT, Vol. VII. p. 774. 



Spcakilltf-trilinpcti an instrument for en- 

 abling the sound of the human voice to be con- 

 veyed to a greater distance. It is of the utmost 

 use on shipboard in enabling the officers to convey 

 orders during windy weather from one part of the 

 deck to another, or to the rigging. The invention 

 is ascribed to Sir Samuel Morland, in 1670, though 

 Athanasins Kircher laid claim to it. Morland's 

 trumpet was of the same form as that now in use 

 viz. a truncated cone, with an outward curve or 

 lip at the opening. The theory of the action of 

 this instrument is much the same as that of the 

 sound ing- board of a musical instrument, but the 

 sounding-board is aerial instead of solid. The air 

 immediately in front of the instrument is acted 

 upon over so wide a surface that it cannot effect- 

 ively evade compression and rarefaction by any 

 process of overflow and inflow towards the sides, 

 and the result is as if the air were well laid hold of 

 and (irmly set in vibration. 



Spear, a weapon of offence, consisting of a 

 wooden shaft or pole varying in length up to 8 or 

 9 feet, and provided with a sharp piercing point. 

 The spear may be regarded as the prototype of the 

 various forms of pierein" weapons, such as the 

 arrow, bolt, and dart, which are projected from 

 bows, catapults, or other engines, and the javelin, 

 assegai, and lance, held in or thrown by the hand. 

 The longer and heavier spears and lances are 

 mainly retained in the hand while in use, but 

 there is no absolute distinction, and the throwing 

 of a spear has in all ages been a form of offen- 

 sive warfare. There can be no doubt that a 

 weapon such as the spear is the most ancient, as 

 well as the most universal, of warlike and hunting 

 weapons. In its earliest form the spear would 

 naturally consist of a simple pole of tough wood 

 sharpened to a point at one extremity, which point 

 might be both formed and hardened by charring in 

 fire. From this an improvement would consist in 

 fitting to the shaft a separate spear-head of bone, 

 as is still practised amongst primitive races. No 

 trace of these early spears remains to us, but of the 

 more developed forms having heads of chipped 

 flint or other hard stones examples are plentiful, 

 and most ingenious methods of fixing such heads 

 are yet practised by South Sea tribes, who carve, 

 paint, and otherwise ornament their spears in an 

 elalmrate manner. To flint-heads succeeded heads 

 of bronze (see Vol. II. p. 478), but these came 

 only late in the bronze period, and were still in 

 use when the Homeric poems were composed. The 

 bronze spear-heads found in Great Britain and in 

 northern Europe generally were cast with sockets, 

 into which the end of the shaft was inserted, but 

 on the eastern Mediterranean coasts tanged spear- 

 heads were used. These spear-heads were various 

 in form and si/e, some being three-edged like the 

 old bayonet, others with expanded leaf-shaped 

 blades, some barbed, and some having loopholes 

 either in socket or blade by which they were 

 lashed to the shaft. The war-lance of the medi- 

 seval knights was 16 feet long; the weapon of 

 modern cavalry regiments known as lancers may 

 be from 8J to 1 1 feet long, usually adorned with 

 a small flag near the head. The Persians at the 

 present day forge spear- heads, for ornamental pur- 

 poses only, with two and sometimes three prongs. 

 The modern spears of savage tribes, used equally 

 for hunting and for warlike purposes, are frequently 



barbed with fish and other bones, and their fighting- 

 spears have sometimes poisoned tips. Among the 

 South Sea Islanders a fishing-spear having several 

 slender barbed points is an important weapon. 

 Among civilised communities the hunting-spear 

 continues to be used for following the wild boar 

 and other large game. See also PIKE, HALBERT, 

 TRIDENT. 



Spearmint. See MINT. 



Spearwort. See RANUNCULUS. 



Special License. See MARRIAGE, p. 58. 



Specialty Debts. See DEBT, p. 716. 



Species. This is a term which it is very diffi- 

 cult to define with precision. The word itself 

 means a look, an appearance, a kind ; and in com- 

 mon usage things that look the same are said to be 

 of the same species. With more definiteness 

 naturalists speak of a mineral species, and of a 

 species of plants or animals. It is with this last 

 usage that we are here concerned. 



In classifying plants or animals we form concep- 

 tions of various degrees of comprehensiveness (see 

 BIOLOGY), and for these we use a series of terms, 

 such as class, order, family, genus, species, variety. 

 The need for precision is that every one may know 

 exactly what is meant when any individual or 

 group of individuals is named. In the ordinary 

 system of classification a species is a group of 

 individuals which closely resemble one another, 

 and the species is usually subordinated to a genus 

 a wider group of similar, but less closely similar, 

 forms and is superior to a variety, of which there 

 may be several in a species. Thus we group the 

 lions as a species ( Felt's leo ) of the genus Felis, in 

 the family Felida 1 , order Carnivora, class Mam- 

 malia, and call the tigers, leopards, cats, and the 

 like other species of the same genus Felis. As no 

 one could confuse lion, tiger, and leopard, for the 

 peculiarities of each are well marked, it may be 

 wondered what difficulty there is in defining 

 species. 



Let us consider the matter practically. We 

 observe our fellow-men ; we see that they differ in 

 many ways from one another, in stature, in 

 features, in complexion, in colour of eyes and hair, 

 and so on ; but we do not think of speaking of a 

 red-haired or a blue-eyed species of man. We 

 should as soon think of saying that the red-haired 

 or blue-eyed child in a family was of a different 

 species from its brothers and sisters or from its 

 parents, which would be absurd. We at once 

 agree with the systematist when he says that the 

 term species should not be given to a group of 

 individuals which are distinguished from other 

 groups by no greater differences than distinguish 

 members of a family, and when he says that the 

 characters of a species must have some constancy 

 from generation to generation, which is not of 

 course the case with red hair or blue eyes. This is 

 a common-sense way of limiting the term, but it 

 leaves many difficulties untouched. It is not 

 readily applied to extinct species, of whose genera- 

 tions and individual variations we cannot know 

 much ; nor has it been applied to a vast number of 

 forms recorded as species sometimes on the strength 

 of single specimens, and often without any know- 

 ledge of their generations. 



But, again, we observe men with much greater 

 peculiarities than red hair or blue eyes ; we con- 

 trast Britons and Chinamen, Lapps and Negroes, 

 and we wonder if these really belong to the same 

 species. Here, however, the systematist reminds 

 us that the members of a species are fertile inter se, 

 which cannot be denied of the different races of 

 mankind. But a little knowledge is enough to 

 keep us from attaching very much weight to this 

 distinction, since both among plants and animals 



