BAT 



19 



BAT 



bands are whitish and the crest blackish, and the under 

 part of the hody ash-colour. 



Thamnophilus ncevius, the spotted shrike of Latham, is 

 an example of the round and comparatively short-tailed 

 division. 



Leach thus describes it from a specimen in the British 

 Museum: Black ; back and belly ash-coloured; the former 

 anteriorly spotted with white ; quills of the wings externally, 

 and the tips of those of the tail, white ; under part of the 

 body ash-colour, of which colour the back partakes in a 

 considerable degree. 



BATA'TAS, the Malayan name of a convolvulaceous 

 plant, the root much eaten in the south of Europe before 

 the cultivation of the potato, which both became a substitute 

 for it and appropriated its name. It has generally been 

 considered a species of convolvulus : but Professor Choisy, in 

 his recent classification, lias erected it and a few others into 

 a peculiar genus, ditinguished by having an ovary with 

 four cells, in each of which there is only one seed. 



[Uitatu/l 



The only species of any general interest is the Batatas 

 edulit, the Convolvulus Batala-i of authors. This plant, 

 originally found wild in the woods of the Malayan archipe- 

 lago, has been gradually dispersed overall the wanner parts 

 of the world, where it is still an object of culture for the sake 

 of its roots, which, when roasted or boiled, are mealy, sweet, 

 and wholesome, but slightly laxative. It is a perennial 

 plant, with long creeping stems, leaves variously lobed and 

 angled, and pale purple (lowers about an inch long. It is 

 impatient of cold, and consequently unfit for cultivation in 

 th northern parts of the world ; but it is a productive agri- 

 cultural plant in many warm countries. It is partially cul- 

 tivated in the south of Spain and of France, whence its roots 

 nre sent to the markets of Madrid and Paris, where they are 

 held as a delicacy. They, however, have the great fault of 

 keeping badly, being very apt to become mouldy and to de- 

 cay, unless extraordinary pains are taken to preserve them 

 dry. Sometimes they are raised in the hothouses of curious 

 persons in this country, by planting them in rich soil in a 

 li.irk-bed, when plenty of roots weighing from one to two 

 pounds are easily obtained. 



liA'TAVI, or BATA'VI (the forms Badai and Betavi 



also occur in inscriptions), the name of the antient in- 

 habitants of South Holland, and some adjacent parts. 

 The Batavi were a Germanic tribe of the race of the 

 Catti, who, some time before the age of Ceesar, left their 

 native district, and settled on the banks of the Vahalis, the 

 present Waal, a branch of the Lower Rhine. They occupied 

 the district between the Vahalis and the Mosa above their 

 junction, and also the island formed by the northern arm of 

 the Rhine (or Rhine of Leyden), the Vahalis and Mosa 

 after their junction, and the ocean; which island now con- 

 stitutes part of the province of South Holland. Caesar (De 

 Bell. Gall. iv. 10), who mentions their country by the name 

 of Insula Batavorum, appears to consider it as belonging 

 to Germany, and not to Gaul ; the limits of Belgic Gaul on 

 that side being placed at the southern branch of the Rhine, 

 or Waal, after its junction with the Mosa, or Maas. They 

 seem to have occupied also a small portion on the banks of 

 the Rhine, and not within the island. Csesar did not carry 

 the war into the country of the Batavi. Under Augustus 

 the Batavi became allies of the Romans. Drusus, the 

 brother of Tiberius, resided for a time among them, and 

 dug a canal, Fossa Drusiana, which connected the Rhine 

 with the modern Yssel. Besides the Batavi there was. ano- 

 ther people on the same island, probably in its north-western 

 extremity, called by the Roman historians Canninefates. 

 They were of the same origin as the Batavi (Tacitus, Hist. 

 iv. 15.), but not so numerous, and their name became gra- 

 dually lost in that of the larger tribe. 



The chief place of the Canninefates \vas Lugdunum Bata- 

 vorum, now Leyden ; and that of the ijatavi was Batavodu- 

 rum, afterwards called Noviomagus, and now Nymegen. 

 This is Mannert's opinion, though others have placed Bata- 

 vodurum at Duurstede, and made it a different place from 

 Noviomagus. The other towns of the Batavi were Arenacum, 

 generally supposed to bo Arnheim, but placed by others near 

 Werthuysen : Carvo, on the northern branch of the Rhine, 

 probably near Arnheim ; Grinnes, near the junction of 

 the Waal with the Maas ; Trajectum, the modern Utrecht ; 

 and Forum Hadriani, in the western part of the island near 

 the sea. The name of the Batavi can be traced even now 

 in that of Betuwe, which is a district of the antient Batavo- 

 rum Insula, between the Rhine, the Waal, and the Lek. 

 [See BKTUWK.] Beyond the n< -hern branch of the Rhine, 

 and between that and the Flevtum, or Yssel, in the pro- 

 vince now called North Holland, were the Frisii and the 

 Frisiaboni, tribes belonging to the great Frisian stook which 

 inhabited the land north-east of the Yssel. Pliny places 

 two other tribes, the Sturii and the Marsucii, on the islands 

 off the western coast at the mouth of the Mosa, which islands 

 now form part of Zealand. 



After the death of Galba, the army of the Rhine having 

 proclaimed Vitellius, and followed him on his way to Italy, 

 the Batavi took the opportunity of rising against the Romans, 

 whose alliance had become very burthensome to them. 

 Claudius Civilis, a man belonging to one of their principal 

 families, though bearing a Latin name, acted us their leader. 

 At one time the insurrection seems to have spread among 

 the neighbouring tribes of Germans as well as of Belgian 

 Gauls, but the speedy return of the legions suppressed the 

 movement. Civilis resisted for a lime, but the Batavi were 

 at last subdued. Still it would appear that they obtained 

 conditions, for we find them afterwards restored to their for- 

 mer state of free allies of Rome. (Mannert, Geschichte der 

 alien Deutschen.) It appears, however, that subsequently, 

 under the reigns of Trajan and Hadrian, the Romans had 

 completely established their dominion over the Batavi ; for we 

 find in the Antonine Itinerary and the Peutinger Table, two 

 Roman roads across the country, one from Lugdunum east- 

 waul to Trajectum, and following the course of the northern 

 Rhine to its separation from the Vahalis, and another from 

 Lugdunum southward across the island to the Mosa, and 

 then eastward along the bank of that river and the Vahalis 

 to Noviomagus. We also find places named after the 

 emperors, such as Forum Hadriani, and fortified camps, 

 such as Castra Batava, which some, however, suppose to 

 have been the same as Batavodurum. (See Mannert, Geo- 

 graphie der Onecken und Homer.) There was another 

 place in Upper Germany, or, more properly, in Noricum, 

 called also Castra Batava, near the confluence of the Inn 

 and the Danube, which was colonized by Batavi, apparently 

 in conformity with the policy which led the Romans to 

 transplant thuir subjects and allies from their homes to 

 foreign countries [See ARMY.] The Batavi were em- 



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