761 



MELIPHAGID^E. 



762 



the Lilac, and its flowers are very fragrant. The berries are sweetish, 

 and, though said to be poisonous, are eaten by children in the United 

 States without inconvenience, but are reputed to be a powerful vermi- 

 fuge. The bark of the root in its recent state has a bitter nauseous 

 taste, yielding its virtues to boiling water, and is cathartic and emetic, 

 and considered in the United States an efficient anthelmintic, and also 

 useful in infantile remittents. 



M. Bukayun is distinguished by Dr. Royle from the West Indian 

 M. sempervirens of Schwarz, with which it was united by Dr. Roxburgh. 

 This tree appears to be a native of Persia, though common throughout 

 India. It is called by the Arabs Ban, and by the Persians Azad-i- 

 Durukht. It is probable therefore that this may be one of the trees 

 included under the Azedarach of Avicenna. The seeds are bitter, and 

 considered laxative and anthelmintic, as is also the bark. M. tomentosa 

 is a species found in the island of Penang ; and M. composita, in which 

 are included both M. tuperba and M. robusta, is a species found in 

 Malabar and Mysore. 



MELIA'CEiE, Meliads, a natural order of Polypetalous Exogenous 

 Plants, distinguished from all others- by their stamens being united 

 into a complete cup, within and often below the rim of which the 

 anthers are inserted. It consists of trees or shrubs with alternate 

 often compound leaves, inhabiting all countries within the tropics, 

 but very rare in colder climates ; Melia Azedarach, or Bead-Tree, a 

 Syrian plant, now naturalised in the south of Europe, forming the 

 principal exception. [MELIA.] In general the species are bitter and 

 astringent, but they are sometimes dangerously poisonous, acting 

 violently as emetics and purgatives. Notwithstanding this, the pulpy 

 fruit of the Lanneh is esteemed hi the Indian Archipelago ; and that 

 of .M ilnea edulis is eaten in Silhet, where it seems to resemble the 

 Litchi and Longan of China. There are 33 genera and 150 species. 



ME'LICA, a genus of Plants belonging to the family of Grasses. 

 It has nearly equal glumes, with lateral ribs nearly as long as the 

 ovate spikelet of 1 or 2 flowers, rounded on the back, and a club-like 

 rudiment of 1 or 2 more ; the paleaj hardening on the loose fruit ; 

 the styles terminal. There are two British species of this genus, 

 it. unijlora and M. nutant, which are found in damp shady woods. 

 (Babington, Manual of British Botany.) 



MELICERTA. [ACALEPHA] 



MELILO'TUS (from /it'Ai, honey, and \u-r6s, lotus), a genus of 

 Plants belonging to the natural order Leguminonce. It has a calyx 

 with 5 nearly equal teeth, the keel obtuse, the filaments filiform, the 

 ovary straight, the pod subglobose or oblong, 1-celled, 1-4-seeded, 

 longer than the calyx ; the petals distinct, deciduous. The species 

 are herbaceous plants with stipules adnate to the petiole, and trifoliate 

 leaves with usually toothed leaflets. None of them are ornamental 

 plants, and they are seldom cultivated except in botanical collections. 

 Two of the species are used as fodder for animals. Three species are 

 found native in Great Britain. 



if, officinalit, the Common Melilot, has lax racemes, with the corolla 

 twice as long as the calyx ; the wings, keel, and standard equal ; the 

 pods ovate, acute, compressed, transversely wrinkled, hairy ; the 

 leaflets serrate, truncate, narrowly ovate ; the stipules setaceous, 

 entire. It grows wild in woods, hedges, and neglected fields. When 

 cultivated in a dry soil and made into hay it has a powerful aromatic 

 smell, and mixed in a small proportion with meadow-hay gives it an 

 agreeable flavour. This plant is used in making the Swiss cheese 

 called Schabzieger. It is ground in a mill, and mixed with the curd 

 into a kind of paste, which is put into conical moulds and there dried. 

 [CHEESE, in ARTS AND Sc. Div.] 



M. vulgaris has the wings and keel equal, but shorter than the 

 standard ; the pods ovate, obtuse, mucronate, reticulate, rugose, and 

 glabrous. It is a rare plant, and is found in sanely and gravelly places 

 near the sea. 



M. arveneii has the wings and standard equal, longer than the keel ; 

 pods ovate, obtuse, mucronate, rounded, and slightly keeled on the 

 back, transversely plicate, rugose, glabrous. The flowers are yellowish, 

 in long racemes. It is found in waste places in Cambridgeshire. 



M. Menanenrit, Messina Melilot, has an erect stem, with obovate 

 cuneated denticulated leaflets; the stipules broad at the base, toothed, 

 linear at the apex ; the racemes few-flowered ; the teeth of the calyx 

 nearly equal, hardly shorter than the tube ; the legume lanceolate, 

 acute, very much nerved, 1-seeded ; the seeds ovate, compressed, large, 

 Hack, rugged from dots. This plant is a native of Barbary, Sicily, 

 Piedmont, and the Straits of Messina. It is the Awnfs of Theophrastus, 

 ' Hist. Plant,' lib. 7, cap 9 and M ; the Aarrcit ^epos of Dioscorides, 

 lib. iv., cap. 171. It is also the Lotus of the Romans (Pliny, xiii. 17 ; 

 xxxii. 21 ; Virgil, ' Georgic.,' ii. 84, and iii. 394). 



None of the species of this genus are worth cultivating as orna- 

 mental plants. They may be easily propagated by seeds, which should 

 be sown in the open border in spring. A light dry soil suits them best. 



(Fraas, Synoptit; Babington, Manual of British Botany; Don, 

 IMchlamydanu Plantt.) 

 M KLI'NA, Schumacher's name for the genus Perna. [MALLEACEA.] 



1IKLIPHAGA. [MKLIPHAGID*.] 



MKUPHA'OID^K, Honey-Suckers, a family of Tenuirostral Birds. 

 Mr. Vigors, in his paper 'On the Natural Affinities that connect the 

 Orders and Families of Birds' ('Linn. Trans.,' vol. xv.), thus generally 

 refers to the Meliphagid<e. " That extraordinary group, the existence 



of the much more considerable portion of which was unknown to the 

 Swedish naturalist, for which there was consequently no place in 

 lis system, occupies a prominent and important situation in the 

 ornithological department of nature. Chiefly confined to Australasia, 

 where they abound in every variety of form ; and in an apparently 

 inexhaustible multitude of species, they find a sufficient and never- 

 failing support in the luxuriant vegetation of that country. There 

 the fields are never without blossom, and some different species of 

 plants, particularly the species of Eucalyptus, afford a constant succes- 

 sion of that food which is suited to the tubular and brush-like structure 

 of the tongue in these birds. Their numbers and variety seem in 

 consequence to be almost unlimited. Like the Marsupial Animals of 

 the same country, a group to all appearance equally anomalous, which 

 contains within its own circle representatives of all the other groups 

 of the Mammalia, this division of birds comprises every form which 

 is observable among the families of the Insessores. From the power- 

 fully constructed and strong-billed Corvidte and Orioli, down to the 

 slender Merops and the delicately shaped Cinnyris, every Insessorial 

 group has its analogous type in this family. Their approach to the 

 Scansorial tribe is strongly conspicuous. The hind toe of the greater 

 portion of the group is long, powerful, and apparently formed for 

 climbing, as Mr. Lewin has pointed out in his generic description of 

 Mdiphaga, (' Birds of New Holland '). In this point of view they 

 seem in Australasia to supply the place of the genuine Pici ; no species 

 of Woodpecker, as far as I have been able to ascertain, having hitherto 

 been found in that country. This strong affinity to the Scansores is 

 preserved by their forming one of the extremes of the present circle, 

 which conies in contact with that tribe. I have indeed some doubts 

 whether, in consequence of this affinity, they may not be even still 

 more intimately united to that group, and form the immediate point 

 of junction of the present tribe with the Certhiadai. I have conse- 

 quently entered them and their conterminous families into the tabular 

 series with a mark of uncertainty. Time, with more accurate exami- 

 nation of their manners and internal economy, will clear away, it is to 

 be hoped, these and similar points of doubt respecting groups so 

 interesting. The following facts however are, I think, sufficiently 

 decided, namely, that the three groups, the Promeropidce, Mdiphagidte, 

 and Nectanniadce, constitute distinct and prominent divisions in the 

 tribe, of which, by that generally stronger and more perfect conforma- 

 tion which distinguishes them from the more typical families, they 

 form the aberrant groups; that they are united among themselves by 

 general affinities ; and that they connect the tribe on each side with 

 the conterminous tribes that approach it, that is, with the Scansores 

 at the one extreme, and with the Fissiroatres, where we first entered 

 on the order, at the other." 



Mr. Swainson (' Classification of Birds,' vol. i.), after observing that 

 he never had the opportunity of examining the tongue of the African 

 Sun-Birds (Cinnyridoi), states that by a fortunate chance he had 

 discovered that the type among the Australian Honey-Suckers (Meli- 

 phuijidie) which represents the Trochilidce, has the tongue constructed 

 precisely the same as in those birds. " This brings us," continues 

 Mr. Swainson, " to the second description of extensible or rather of 

 suctorial tongues, and which is of a form almost peculiar to the honey- 

 suckers of Australia and its islands. In these birds the tongue is not 

 nearly so extensible as in the Trochilidce, being seldom more than 

 half as long again as the bill ; nor are the bones of the os hyoides 

 carried back upon the skull, as in the woodpeckers and humming- 

 birds. Nevertheless the structure appears especially adapted for 

 suction ; the form of the lower part is the same as in ordinary birds, 

 but the end is composed of a great number of delicate fibres or fila- 

 ments exactly resembling a painter's brush. Lewin, who drew and 

 described these birds iu their native region, has figured the tongue of 

 the Warty-Faced Honeysucker (Meliphuya Phryrjia) (' Birds of New 

 Holland," pi. 4), and describes the bird as sometimes to be seen ' iu 

 great cumbers, constantly flying from tree to tree (particularly the 

 blue gum), feeding among the blossoms by extracting the honey with 

 their long tongues from every flower as they passed.' What will 

 appear still more extraordinary to the scientific naturalist is the fact 

 that some birds of this Meliphagous group are actually woodpeckers, and 

 yet retain the typical structure of the tongue of their own natural 

 family. The same observer, speaking of the blue-faced honey-sucker, 

 describes it as being 'fond of picking transverse holes in the bark, 

 between which and the wood it inserts its long tongue in search of 

 small insects, which it draws out with great dexterity.' Now, as 

 Lewin describes this bird as a honey-sucker, we must conclude, until 

 facts prove otherwise, that it has the filamentous tongue of the honey- 

 suckers, but that it is used for the purpose, not of spearing insects, 

 but of catching them by means of the glutinous matter on the fila- 

 ments, a mode of capturing its prey by no means improbable, provided 

 the insects are of small size. It must not be supposed however that 

 the food of the Melip/iagida; several of which are as large as a thrush, 

 and three or four much larger, is restricted, any more than that of 

 the humming-birds, simply to the nectar of flowers. They indeed 

 feed upon the honey, but, as Lewin declares, combined with the 

 numerous small insects lodged in most of the flowers, which they 

 extract in a dexterous manner with their tongues, peculiarly formed 

 for that purpose. It is clear however, when we come to reflect upon 

 the matter, that birds which are attached to the secretions of parti- 



