MOCCASIN 



:tml iHTmaii armies were ready to 



lie total tiiin- occupied iii 



itni'_; six million men and 



|in.\ iilini; them with ammunition 



i 'I dies ha v iii'.' been 11 days. 



The P.I in -h fleet was ready to act 



iv as Aug. 3, and the HritMi 



nmary Force was ready to 



i l''runce on Aug. 12. These 



feats may bo contrasted with the 37 



days required by the French in 1859 



to mobilise 130,000 men and place 



them in Italy; with the 17 days re- 



quired by Germany in 1870 to place 



400,000 men on the French fron- 



tier ; and with the 13 days required 



in I vi;) by Great Britain to embark 



40,000 men for the S. African War. 



Moccasin OB MOCASSIN. Shoe 



ui'iu by the N. American Indians. 



They are made of raw hide, with 



Moccasin. Pattern and made-up 

 moccasin of one piece 



uppers of soft deer skin, though the 

 materials vary slightly in different 

 parts of the country. The uppers are 

 often embroidered with bead work or 

 decorated with porcupine quills, etc. 

 See Boot and Shoe, colour plate. 



Moccasin (Natrix). Name of a 



snake found in N. America. It is 



harmless, and is related to the garter 



snake and the tesselated snake of 



Europe. It is sometimes, but im- 



roperly, applied to the water 



loccasin snake. See Snake ; Water 



[occasin. ' 



Mocha OR MOKHA. Port in the 

 Yemen, S.W. Arabia. About 60 m. 

 ;.W. of Cape Bab-el-Mandeb, it 

 formerly the centre of an im- 

 >nse trade in coffee, but a great 

 irt of its business has been trans- 

 rred to Hodeida, farther up the 

 it of the Red Sea. Pop. 5,000. 

 Mock Heroic Poetry. Poetry 

 itten in burlesque of the heroic 

 action or character. It deals 

 ith the general, parody being con- 

 cerned with the particular. The 

 earliest example is that of The 

 Battle of the Frogs and Mice, at 

 one time supposed to be by Homer, 

 but probably rather intended as a 

 burlesque of his Iliad. Chaucer's 

 The Story of Sir Thopas, in The 

 Canterbury Tales, was written in 

 mockery of the romances of the 

 time. Beaumont and Fletcher in 

 The Knight of the Burning Pestle 

 dealt in stage mock heroics with the 

 old romances, to which Cervantes 

 at the same time was dealing a 

 death blow in Don Quixote. But- 



5461 



ler's Hudibras, Dryden'a Macflock- 

 noe, and Pope's Dunciad are 

 satires in mock heroic form. The 

 Rehearsal, by the duke of Buck- 

 ingham and others, and The Critic, 

 by R. B. Sheridan, depend for their 

 fun on the mock heroic elements in 

 them. Boileau's Le Lutrin was 

 imitated and far surpassed by Pope 

 in the Rape of the Lock, one of the 

 wittiest examples of the mock 

 heroic in English. See Poetry. 



Mocking Bird (Mimua poly- 

 glottus). Common bird of N. 

 America, nearly related to the 

 thrush, which it much resembles 

 in appearance. It gains its name 

 from the facility with which it 

 imitates the notes of other birds. 

 It is found in the U.S.A. and the 

 W. Indies, and is characterised by 

 long tail, short wings, and whiteness 

 of the underpart of the body. The 

 wings and tail are black, marked 



Mocking Bird. Cuban specimen o! 

 the American song-bird 



with white, and the bird, including 

 tail, measures a little less than a 

 foot in length. See Bird ; Catbird. 



Mock Suns and Moons. Op- 

 tical illusions often seen in conjunc- 

 tion with halos of the sun and 

 moon. Known scientifically as par- 

 helia and paraselenae respectively, 

 images of the sun and moon appear 

 on the circumference of a solar or 

 lunar halo. The images are due to 

 the prismatic reflection of the rays 

 of light through ice crystals formed 

 in the upper atmosphere. See Halo. 



M6d (Gael, from Old Norse, 

 meeting or " moot "). Annual Gae- 

 lic festival. The meetings are held 

 by An Comunn Gaidhealach, a so- 

 ciety of Scottish Highlanders 

 founded in 1891 to preserve and 

 encourage the Gaelic language, 

 music, etc., of Scotland. Competi- 

 tions in singing, playing, etc., are 

 held. The headquarters of the 

 Comunn are at 114, West Camp- 

 bell Street, Glasgow. Pron. mode. 



Modder. River of S. Africa. 

 Rising near Dewetsdorp, about 40 

 m. S.E. of Bloemfontein, it flows N. 

 and then W. through the Orange 

 Free State, and entering Bechuana- 

 land, discharges, after a course of 

 186 m., into the Vaal, near where the 

 rly. crosses the latter river on the 

 way from Cape Town to Bulawayo. 



MODE 



The battle of Modder River 

 (Nov. 26, 1899) was the third of 

 the actions of the 8. African War 

 fought by Lord Methuen in hu at- 

 tempt to relieve Kimberiey. The 

 British were surprised by a Boer 

 contingent under de la Rey, and 

 the advance held up until the Boer 

 flank was turned by Gen. Pole- 

 Carew. Methuen was badly 

 wounded. The Boer casualties were 

 about 150, the British losses being 

 nearly 400. See South African War. 



Mode. Musical term of varied 

 meaning. The Greek modes, and 

 the modes of the Middle Ages which 

 remained in use until about the 

 middle of the 17th century, were 

 concerned with the order of the 

 tones and semitones in the octave 

 scale, i.e. with the mode or manner 

 of their arrangement. 



The modes chiefly in use may be 

 remembered in a rough and ready 

 way by thinking of the white keys 

 only of the pianoforte. The Ionian 

 mode began on C, and was thus 

 identical with our modern major 

 scale ; the Dorian on D ; the 

 Phrygian on E ; the Lydian on F ; 

 the Myxolydian on G ; the Aeolian 

 on A, like the present descending 



Mock Sun. Pictorial diagram showing 



halos round Sun and mock suns at 



their intersections 



melodic minor scale ; and the 

 Locrian little used and hardly 

 recognized by authorities on B. 

 Each of these normal or authentic 

 modes had a plagal scale related 

 to it, running from dominant to 

 dominant of the authentic scale. 

 Thus the Ionian mode was as fol- 

 lows : 



Jl - -.-ft 



P ^ i T -*-"- a! -H 



3 "" 



with dominant at G. The plagal 

 form, called Hypoionian, was : 





with dominant at E. See G regorian 

 chant ; consult also Dictionary of 

 Music and Musicians, G. Grove, 

 voL iii, pp. 222-32, 1904-10. 



