LARAMIE 



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LARCH 



lapwing has the habit of pretending to be lame 

 or hurt when its nest or young are approached, 

 by this ruse luring the intruder off to a safe dis- 

 tance. Its nest is a depression in the soil and 

 contains four 

 olive-green eggs, 

 thickly spotted 

 with black and 

 brown. The eggs 

 are considered a 

 great delicacy, 

 and are gathered 

 and sold in city 

 markets. 



Lapwings are 

 only accidental 

 in North Amer- 

 ica. In South 

 America is found THE LAPWING 



a species known as the Cayenne lapwing, groups 

 of which have been observed going through a 

 singular marching movement, like a children's 

 game. Another interesting lapwing is the 

 crocodile bird of Egypt, which v from the time 

 of Herodotus, has been known as the companion 

 of the crocodile, removing for food the bugs, 

 leeches, etc., that find lodging on the monster's 

 skin and, in turn, warning it of approaching 

 danger. In this characteristic it is much like 

 the rhinoceros bird (see RHINOCEROS). Lap- 

 wings are also found in Arabia, Persia, India 

 and Ceylon. 



LARAMIE, lair 'a mi, WYO., the county seat 

 of Albany County, is situated in the south- 

 eastern part of the state, on the great Laramie 

 Plains, partially surrounded by the Medicine 

 Bow Mountains on the west and the Laramie 

 Range on the east. The elevation is 7,165 feet. 

 Cheyenne is fifty-seven miles southeast and 

 Denver is 132 miles south and east. Laramie 

 is on the Big Laramie River and on the Union 

 Pacific and the Colorado, Wyoming & Eastern 

 railroads. The Laramie, Hahn's Peak & Pa- 

 cific Railway is a local line running westward 

 to the hunting and fishing resort of the Medi- 

 cine Bow Mountains and North Park. The 

 area of the city is nearly two square miles. In 

 1910 the population was 8,237; it was 8,257 in 

 1916 (Federal estimate). 



Here is located the University of Wyoming, 

 with its several colleges, including the state 

 normal school, the school of mines and engi- 

 neering and the agricultural college ; the United 

 States experiment station and a fish hatchery 

 are government enterprises. Among the more 

 prominent buildings are a Federal building, 



erected in 1906 at a cost of $120,000; a Car- 

 negie Library and a Masonic Temple. Laramie 

 is the see of the Episcopal Church in Wyoming. 



This city is the supply and trading center of 

 a large stock-raising and mining region. Ex- 

 tensive irrigation projects are rapidly develop- 

 ing agriculture; already alfalfa, grains and po- 

 tatoes are successful crops. In the vicinity are 

 found extensive deposits of soda, lime, sand, 

 coal, oil and natural gas; there is also consid- 

 erable gold and silver, lead, copper, iron and 

 graphite. Three large cement and plaster mills 

 are supplied from huge plaster deposits near 

 the city. Other industrials include stock yards, 

 railway and machine shops and an ice plant. 



A settlement made here in 1868 was named 

 in honor of Jacques La Ramie, a French trap- 

 per. It was chartered as a city by the legis- 

 lature of Dakota in 1868, and rechartered by 

 the legislature of Wyoming in 1873. 



LARCENY, a form of theft, consists in dis- 

 honestly taking away the personal goods of 

 another. Its exact definition varies according 

 to local statutes. In some states and provinces 

 larceny is divided into two classes, grand and 

 petit. In grand larceny two degrees are some- 

 times distinguished, usually as follows: the 

 first, larceny in the night, or larceny of prop- 

 erty worth more than five hundred dollars ; the 

 second, larceny of property worth more than 

 twenty-five dollars and less than five hundred 

 dollars. Petit larceny includes taking of prop- 

 erty of less than twenty-five dollars in value. 

 Grand larceny is usually punished by imprison- 

 ment, petit larceny by fine or imprisonment. 

 Until 1827 some forms of larceny in Great 

 Britain were punishable by death. Larceny 

 is usually distinguished from ROBBERY; BUR- 

 GLARY; EMBEZZLEMENT; see the articles under 

 those heads. R.E.B. 



LARCH, the name of a group of trees be- 

 longing to the cone-bearing family (coniferae). 

 There are three North American species: the 

 tamarack, sometimes called hackmatack, the 

 Western larch and the Alpine larch. They are 

 slender, conical trees, varying from fifty to 250 

 feet in height, with branches which in old trees 

 droop toward the ground. The bark, which is 

 used in tanning and dyeing, is thin and scaly. 

 Leaves or needles are clustered in little sheaths 

 on short spurs. Flowers of two sorts come 

 from some of the buds, while others produce 

 crowded tufts of needles. The tough roots of 

 the larch were used by the Indians to bind up 

 their canoes, as Longfellow tells us in Hia- 

 .watha: 



