177 



COW-BERRY. 



CRACID.E. 



178 



COW-BERRY, a common name for the Red Whortleberry. 

 [VACCINIUM.] 



COW-BUNTING. [MOLOTHRUS.] 



COWITCH, or COWAGE, a word of unknown derivation, unless it 

 be a corruption of Al Kooshee, the Bengali name of one of the plants 

 that produces it, consists of the hairs found upon the pods of different 

 species of Miicuna. They are exceedingly slender, brittle, and easily 

 detached, and the fragments readily stick into the skin and produce 

 an intolerable itching ; hence they are frequently employed for mis- 

 chievous purposes. Cowitch is also used medicinally as a vermifuge, 

 by being mixed with syrup till of the consistence of honey, and given 

 in doses of two or three tea-spoonfuls. 



The plants that bear these pods are large twining annuals or peren 

 nials, with leaves like those of kidney-beans, being dark purple papiliona- 

 ceous flowers, with a short standard lying close upon the wings and 

 keel, and diadelphous stamens, half of which have round and half 

 arrow-headed anthers. The pods contain from one to six seeds, and 

 are covered by a very wrinkled shriveled skin, which even stands up 

 in little plates. Before they are ripe and their hairs hardened, the 

 pods are employed as a vegetable, like kidney -beans, and are described 

 as being delicious. The species are found in hedges, thickets, on 

 the banks of rivers, and about watercourses in both 'the East and 

 West Indies, and America within the tropics. Mucuna urera and 

 M. prurient usually furnish the substance ; but that from M. mono- 

 rperma, called by the Telingas Enooga dola Gunda, or Elephant's 

 Scratch-Wort, is said to exceed the others in the irritating burning 

 property of ita hairs. Dr. Roxburgh states that M. prurient was one 

 of the plants formerly used in India to poison wells ; " it has turned 

 out, however, not to be the poison it was taken for, and it is more 

 than likely that the other plants employed for the same base ends 

 are fortunately much less dangerous than those who employ them 

 imagine." [MucuxA.] 



Cowitch. 

 Opened pod of Miicuna monosperma, natural size. 



COW-PARSLEY, an Umbelliferous Plant (CluxrophyUum temiUum). 

 [CH.EROPHYLLUM.] 



COW-PARSNEP, an Umbelliferous Plant [HERACLEUM.] 



COW-PEN-BIRD. [MOLOTHRCS.] 



COW-PLANT. [GYMNEMA.] 



COWRY. [CYPR^EID*.] 



COWSLIP. [PRIMULA.] 



COW-TREE, a Plant belonging to the natural order Urticacca:, and 

 apparently to the genus Sroiimum, from which, when wounded, 

 a milky nutritious juice is discharged in such abundance as to render 

 it an important object to the poor natives in whose country it grows. 

 It is 'described by Humboldt as being peculiar to the Cordilleras of 

 the coast of Caracas, particularly from Barbula to the lake of Mara- 

 caybo, near the village of San Mateo, and in the valley of Caucagua, 

 three days' journey east of Caracas. In these places it bears the name 

 of Palo de Vaca, or Arbol de Leche, and forms a fine tree resembling 

 the Star-Apple of the West Indies. " Its oblong pointed leaves, rough 

 Iternate, are marked by lateral ribs, prominent at the lower 

 surface, and parallel ; they are, some of them, ten inches long." Its 

 flowers and fruit have not been seen by any botanist. From incisions 

 in its trunk flows a glutinous milk, similar in consistence to the first 

 milk yielded by a cow after calving. It has an agreeable balsamic 

 smell, is eaten by the negroes, who fatten upon it, and has been found 

 by Europeans perfectly innocuous. In chemical characters it is 

 remarkably similar to the milk of animals, throwing down a cheesy 



SAT. HIST. IHV. Vol.. II. 



matter, and undergoing the same phenomena of putrefaction as 

 gelatine. 



Humboldt supposed the Cow-Tree to belong to the Sapotaceous 

 Order; but, though little has been added to our knowledge of it since 

 his visit to the Caracas, it is at least certain that it is either a species 

 ef Brosinium, or very nearly related to it, and consequently a member 

 of the Urticaceous Order. 



The latter circumstance renders the Cow-Tree still more interesting ; 

 for the milky juice of Urticaceous plants is in other cases highly 

 poisonous. But botanists are now acquainted with many instances of 

 innocuous plants in poisonous orders ; tlras the Hya-Hya Tree of 

 Demerara, for instance, belonging to the deadly Apocyuaceous Family, 

 yields a thick rich milky fluid destitute of acrimony ; and the Kiria- 

 ghuna plant of Ceylon is a sort of East Indian Cow-Plant, notwith- 

 standing it belongs to the Asclepiadaceous Order, which is acrid and 

 dangerous. In the absence of precise information as to the circum- 

 stances under which the Cow-Trees are milked, it is impossible to say 

 what is the cause of their harmlessness ; but every physiologist will 

 see that it is capable of being explained without difficulty in more 

 ways than one. 



COYPU. [MYOPOTAMUS.] 



CRAB. [CANCER ; CRUSTACEA.] 



CRAB-APPLE, or WILD APPLE. [PYRUS.] 



CRABRO'NID^E (Leach), Crabronita (Latreille), a family of 

 Hymenopterous Insects of the section Aculeata and sub-sectiou 

 Possores. The species have the following characters : Head large, 

 and appearing almost square when viewed from above ; body oval or 

 elliptical, narrowed more or less at the base, and joined to the thorax 

 by a peduncle ; antenna short, and generally thickened towards the 

 apex. 



According to Latreille, the following genera are included in this 

 family : Tripoxylon, Gorytet, Crabro, Stigmus, Pemphredon, Mdlinue, 

 Alyton, Pirn, Philanthut, and Cercerit. 



The species of Tripoxylon provision their nests with small spiders. 

 The species of Gorytei are parasitic. 



The species of the genus Crabro are chiefly distinguished by their 

 having but one perfect cubital cell to the anterior wing ; the mandibles 

 terminating in a bifid point, and the antenna; being distinctly genicu- 

 lated, they are sometimes filiform, and sometimes slightly serrated. 

 The palpi are short, and almost equal. The clypeus is frequently 

 clothed with a fine down of a glossy silver-like hue. 



These insects are extremely active in their movements, and may be 

 frequently seen settling on the flowers of umbelliferous plants, on 

 palings, or on the leaves of plants when the sun is shining upon them, 

 lying wait in such situations for the approach of other insects, which 

 they seize and carry to their nests for the purpose of feeding their 

 larvae. The larger species of this country are mostly of yellow and 

 black colours, the body being adorned with rings of the former colour, 

 the smaller species are for the most part black. 



Crabro ctplialotes is upwards of half an inch in length ; black ; the 

 body is adorned with five yellow rings ; the basal joint of the antennae 

 and the tibia: and tarsi are also yellow. 



Crabro patellatus (Panzer), and several other species of this genus, 

 are remarkable in having a large appendage attached to the external 

 part of the anterior tibiae ; this is a thin plate of a somewhat rounded 

 form, convex above and concave beneath, and is undoubtedly used in 

 removing the soil whilst these insects are forming their burrows in 

 the ground. Each burrow is stored with flies or other insects 

 (depending upon the species of Crabro to which it belongs) ; the eggs 

 are then deposited with these flies, which constitute the food of the 

 larvae when hatched. Many species of Crabro form their cells in 

 rotten trees or posts. Much that relates to the habits of these insects 

 however remains to be discovered. 



CRA'CID^E (Vigors), a family of Rasorial or Gallinaceous Birds 

 (Rasoret). Mr. Vigors regarded this family as connected with the 

 Struthious Birds, Strulhionida (Ostrich Family), by means of the 

 Dodo [DoDo], generally supposed to be now extinct, the foot of 

 which, he observes, has a strong hind toe, and which, with the excep- 

 tion of its being more robust, in which character it still adheres to 

 the Struthionidai, corresponds exactly with the Linnsean genus Cms. 

 The bird," says Mr. Vigors, " thus becomes osculant, and forms a 

 strong point of junction between these two conterminous groups, 

 which, though evidently approaching each other in general points of 

 similitude, would not exhibit that intimate bond of connection which 

 we have seen to prevail almost uniformly throughout the neighbouring 

 ubdivisions of nature, were it not for the intervention of this important 

 genus." 



" The family of Cracida," says Mr. Vigors, " thus connected with 

 the Struthionidce, are separated from the typical groups of the order 

 by the length and robustness of the hinder toe, and by its being 

 situated more nearly on a level with those in front. These birds, 

 placed in this manner at the extreme of the present order, assume 

 uore of the habits and appearance of the preceding order of Perchers 

 ;han the other Rasoro, with the exception of the family of Columbidte. 

 They are found most frequently to make their abode in trees, and to 

 resort to the neighbourhood of forests : in the lesser number of their 

 iail-feathers they evince an equal deviation from their more typical 

 congeners, and they never possess a spur. This family contains the 



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