MAGNIFICAT 



3596 



MAGYARS 



street cars, elevators and the like. See DY- 

 NAMO; ELECTRICITY. 



MAGNIFICAT, magnif'i kat, the title given 

 to the Latin text and translation of the song 

 of the Virgin Mary. It is the opening word in 

 the Latin Vulgate, "Magnificat anima mea 

 Dominum" ("My soul doth magnify the 

 Lord"). It is sung in the Roman Catholic 

 Church at vespers, or evensong, and in some 

 churches is sung at other devotions. It is said 

 that this canticle or song has been set to music 

 oftener than any other hymn in the liturgy. 



MAG'NITUDE, in astronomy, is a term used 

 to express the relative brightness of a star. 

 The ancients, to whom the telescope was un- 

 known, distinguished stars of six degrees of 

 brightness. The modern astronomer still cal- 

 culates magnitude on a scale ranging from the 

 sixteen stars of the greatest brightness, called 

 first magnitude, to the faintest stars visible to 

 the naked eye, called sixth magnitude. In this 

 scale the quantity of light given by any star 

 is taken to be 2.512 times brighter than that 

 of a star of the next lowest degree of bright- 

 ness. Sirius and Arcturus, each of which is de- 

 scribed under its title, are examples of first- 

 magnitude stars. See ASTRONOMY; STARS. 



MAGNOLIA, mag no' li a, the name of a 

 tree, or more truly a shrub, with gloomy, blue- 

 green foliage and fragrant, ivory-colored blos- 

 soms, named after Pierre Magnol, a French 

 botanist. In some of the warmer countries in 

 the north of Eu- 

 rope a certain 

 species was some- 

 times called the 

 beaver tree, be- 

 cause the beavers 

 used the roots for 

 food and made 

 their houses from ' 

 the soft wood of 

 the trunk. The 

 magnolia is 

 known by various 

 other names, 

 among them, 

 sweet-bay, swamp 

 sassafras and 

 white laurel. This shrub, which often grows as 

 tall as a tree, is found in swampy woods in the 

 Atlantic and Gulf States in America, and in 

 parts of Europe, Greenland, Australia, Japan 

 and Java. Because of its beauty the year round 

 it is frequently transplanted to parks and gar- 

 dens. The leaves are evergreen and the fruit is 



Fragrant o'er all the western 

 groves, 



The tall magnolia towers un- 

 shaded. 



MARIA BROOKS. 



spike shaped and contains many seed vessels, 

 from which scarlet or brown seeds hang by slen- 

 der threads. As the flowers grow older they 

 turn "from deep cream to a rich peach color. 

 The bark and dried flower buds of the plant are 

 used medicinally. The magnolia is the state 

 flower of Mississippi, Louisiana and Georgia. 



MA 'GOG, a town in Stanstead County, Que- 

 bec, in the southeast corner of the province. It 

 is situated at the north end of Lake Memphre- 

 magog, which is navigated by steamers plying 

 between towns in Quebec and Vermont. Ma- 

 gog is also on the Halifax-Montreal short line 

 of the Canadian Pacific Railway, being seven- 

 teen miles west of Sherbrooke and eighty-eight 

 miles east of Montreal. The town is a popular 

 resort for anglers, and is also known for its but- 

 ter and cheese, its textiles, and its lumber prod- 

 ucts. Population in 1911, 3,978. 



MAG 'PIE, a bird of pleasing appearance, 

 somewhat similar to the crow and the jay, 

 found in Western North America, from Mexico 



THE MAGPIE 



to Alaska. It is a glossy black in color, with 

 under parts and wing coverts of pure white, 

 and it has a very long, graduated tail. Mag- 

 pies are usually seen in groups, and are noisy 

 and quarrelsome, delighting in thieving and 

 mimicry. When tamed, they may be taught 

 to speak simple syllables. They build a bulky, 

 domed nest with an opening in the side, usually 

 placed in the fork of a low tree. The eggs are 

 from four to eight in number, grayish white in 

 color, spotted with brown and drab. Species 

 of the magpie are also found in Europe and 

 Asia, where by superstitious people the con- 

 tinued presence of one near the home is con- 

 sidered an ill omen. 



MAGYARS, mod'yahrs, the name which the 

 upper classes in Hungary prefer to their more 

 familiar one, Hungarians. A little more than 

 1,000 years ago hordes of Magyars, reckless and 

 skilled barbarian horsemen, plunged into Eu- 

 rope from their home somewhere east of the 



