A C O R N A CROCHORDUS. 



27 



the same timid character, and the same disposition to 

 keep out of the way ; on that account, the number of 

 species is not known, and of those that have been 

 named the history is imperfect. 



ACORN. The fruit of the oak, which prows as 

 represented in the engraving. In times of scarcity 



acorns have been used as human food in perhaps every 

 country in Europe in some parts of Spain even to this 

 day. As the food of swine thev constituted in early 

 times a considerable item in the profits of manors, 

 which were usually valued according to the number of 

 : swine that could lie fatted in the woods. This was 

 more particularly the case with our Saxon ancestors, 

 who had large herds of these animals. 



ACORUS(the Sweet Flag). A genus of plants con- 

 taining three species, one be.inir a British aquatic, and 

 two terrestrial, from China. They belong to the Lin- 

 naean class and order, Hexandria Monogynia. Natural 

 order, Aroidcet-. The British sweet flair was formerly 

 used to strew the floors of churches and halls on par- 

 ticular occasions ; the bruised leaves yielding a grate- 

 ful scout. 



ACOTYLEDONOUS PLANTS. Are those in 

 which the seed lobes are not present or indistinct. 

 Vascular plants are peculiarly characterised by the 

 presence of a cotyledon or cotyledons and cel- 

 lular plants by the absence of a cotyledon. The 

 former group corresponds to the phaenogamous plants 

 of modern botanists, and is subdivided into inonoco- 

 tyledonous, dicotyledonous, and perhaps polycotyle- 

 donons divisions, according to the number of the cotyle- 

 dons proper to the species. This division has acquired 

 its celebrity chiefly in consequence of its having been 

 adopted by .lussieu as the basis of his natural system. 



Ihe latter group the cellular, or acotyledonous 

 plants correspond pretty nearly in their extent to 

 the imperfect plants of Ray, the cryptogamons plants 

 of Linnaeus, or the agamous plants of Humboldt, 

 amounting, as it is said, to about 6000 species. Hence 

 it will be seen that they embrace merely the lower 

 grades of the vegetable creation the Filices, the 

 Musci, the Hepatsese, the Algte, the Fungi being- 

 placed, as it were, at the bottom of the scale, and 

 exhibiting, in their outward aspect, as well as in their 

 internal structure, nothing of that loveliness of form, and 

 but rarely that brilliancy of colouring, by which some 

 of the other divisions of plants are distinguished. They 

 are the first and rudest types of vegetable life, many 

 of them consisting merely of a cluster of minute cells, 

 or of minute threads, as in the case of proto-cocctts and 

 IH/.IXUS ; and many of them being, in fact, nothing 

 more than a mere slime or mucus, as in the moulds 



and nostocs. Yet these minute and apparently 

 insignificant tribes of vegetables are by no means 

 useless or superfluous in the scale of nature. They 

 are just what they should lie to complete or keep 

 up the integrity of the vegetable kingdom, whether 

 it be by decomposing putrid and faecal matters, or 

 by preparing a soil fit for vegetables of a higher 

 order. They are scattered over all climates and 

 all quarters of the world, replenishing both earth 

 and sea with vegetable life, and ascending even into 

 the regions of the air, by the very lightness of their 

 seeds or germs, to be wafted on the wind, till drenched 

 with moisture they descend again, ready to cling to 

 the soil that suits them, if it should be even the sur- 

 face of the flinty rock, or to spread themselves over 

 mountains of eternal snow, or to immerse themselves 

 in the waters of the ocean. Thus many of the algae, 

 at least, sow their seed and germinate where no other 

 plant could live. They grow up, and come to matu- 

 rity, and perish where they grow, forming, in the 

 process of years, a soil of some depth. First mosses, 

 and then ferns, are found to follow In their train, 

 leaving a soil deeper and richer still, till at last, in the 

 revolution of ages, the very surface of the barren 

 rock is covered with a soil capable of supporting the 

 loftiest trees. 



ACROCEPHALUS. An ornamental annual 

 plant, belonging- to the Linnaean class and order, Dldy- 

 namia Angiospermia, and Natural order Labiattc. 



ACROCHORDUS (Warty Serpent). A genus of 

 serpents, supposed to be of the innoxious kind, or those 

 which have no poison fangs, found in the island of 

 Java. Only one species has been observed with any 

 degree of attention ; and the history of that one is so 

 imperfect, that naturalists are not agreed as to whe- 

 ther it strictly belongs to the serpents destitute of 

 poison, or has a mode of poisoning of its own, by 

 means of a peculiar bone which has been detected in 

 the head, and without the ordinary apparatus of poison 

 fangs. 



From the little that is known of the observed 

 species, the Acrochordus Jnvanennis of systematic 

 writers, the Aulrtr cccrrnn of the natives of Java, it. 

 should seem that the animal has no need for poison- 

 ing apparatus of any kind, which is commonly used 

 by those serpents that have it, not for the purposes of 

 war, but for the capture of prey, as the stomach of 

 the one which was found by the traveller Hornstedf, 

 previous to 1787, contained, not the remains of ani- 

 mal matter of any kind, but those of fruit The 

 form of the animal is as singular as that species of 

 food is uncommon for a serpent. The head is rather 

 small and depressed, the upper jaw projecting beyond 

 the under one, and each jaw furnished with two rows 

 of small but sharp teeth. The tongue is short, thick, 

 and unlike the tongues of most other serpents. The 

 scales are nearly of uniform size upon all parts of the 

 body ; they have three successive keel-shaped eleva- 

 tions. When the animal dilates the skin, which it 

 has the power of doing to a considerable extent, the 

 scales stand up like warts ; and it is from that circum- 

 stance the animal is named. 



The specimen met with by the traveller already 

 alluded to, was a large animal, upwards of eight 

 feet in length ; and three inches in diameter at tlie 

 thickest part. The form of the body is very singular ; 

 it gradually increases in thickness from the head to 

 the insertion of the tail , and then becomes suddenly 

 small, the whole tail being of trifling dimensions 



