LAPIS L A Z U L I L A P W I N G. 



habits are, however, so nearly allied to those of the 

 species that have been already noticed, that a repe- 

 tition of them would be unnecessary, and a mere 

 enumeration of sizes and colours could not convey 

 much useful information to the general reader ; for 

 which reasons we shall not enter into the details 

 of them. 



Shrikes are altogether rather an interesting genus 

 of birds, on account of the kind of food which they con- 

 sume, which consists chiefly of small animals that are 

 particularly annoy ing to cultivators. In the system they 

 hold a sort of intermediate place between the birds of 

 prey, properly so called, and the crow tribe. They 

 have the feet of the latter, but their bills approximate 

 those of the former ; and though many of them kill 

 and eat smaller birds, there are none of them which 

 rob the nests of the eggs that they contain, as is done 

 by many of the crows ; and they are not nearly so 

 miscellaneous in their feeding, or so capable of sub- 

 sisting upon vegetable substances, as crows are ; and, 

 therefore, when their insect food fails, they are under 

 the necessity of shifting their quarters by migration. 

 The style of their flight is also different from that 

 of the crows, and so are the marking of their colours. 



LANTERN-FLY. The name of a supposed lu- 

 minous insect (see FULGORA), to the account of which 

 we have to add, that the prince of Nieuwied, whose 

 extensive researches in the Natural History of America 

 which have so much contributed to elucidate many 

 disputed points, render his recent decease an irre- 

 trievable loss to zoology, never observed the least 

 traces of luminosity in the Brazilian lantern-fly during 

 his travels in South America ; whence the question of 

 the supposed luminous powers of these insects which 

 has lately been discussed at such an inconvenient 

 length in the Entomological Magazine, may be con- 

 sidered as decided in the negative. Donovan, indeed, 

 represented the Chinese species as emitting a white 

 light from its snout whilst hovering in a bunch of 

 chrysanthemums ; but the artistical talents of this 

 writer were too evident in all his works to allow 

 any weight to be given to his authority in such a dis- 

 puted point as the present. Another figure, with 

 still less correctness, has made the rays spring, not 

 from the snout, but from the body. 



LAPIS LAZULI. The azure stone, or sapphire 

 of the early mineralogists. This beautiful mineral is 

 found in Persia, Bucharia, China, and in the neigh- 

 bourhood of the Ural chain of mountains. It forms a 

 considerable article of commerce in China, as it is used 

 iu ornamenting the best sort of earthenware manufac- 

 tured in that country. It is found massive, dissemi- 

 nated, and in rolled pieces, the fragments being 

 indeterminately irregular. 



Lapis lazuli is much prized by lapidaries, on ac- 

 count of the fine polish it is capable of receiving ; and 

 as such, it forms a beautiful ornament in the formation 

 of boxes and other small works of art. The usual 

 belief, that it owes its beautiful colour to copper, is 

 erroneous, as the most careful analysis furnishes no 

 trace of that metal ; iron is, however, found in consi- 

 derable quantities. The name ultramarine, given to 

 the pigment obtained from this mineral, is said to 

 have been bestowed on it in consequence of the stone 

 having been brought from beyond the sea. Lapis 

 lazuli was once used in medicine, and from the splen- 

 did yellow veins that it presents, was called the 

 " golden remedy." 



LAPWING (Vanellus), A genus of echassicrs 



or stilt birds, belonging to the pressirostral division, 

 and nearly allied, in many of their characters, to the 

 plovers and oyster- catchers, but sufficiently distin- 

 guished from both to entitle them to be ranked as a 

 distinct genus ; and, indeed, although the species are 

 not very numerous, they admit of division into two 

 sub-genera, lapwings, properly so called, and plover 

 lapwings. The name lapwing alludes to the sound 

 which these birds can make, either by striking the 

 turns of the wings against each other over the back, 

 or by striking the points of them with great force 

 against the air ; and the systematic name, Vanellm, is 

 given to them on the same account. It means rela- 

 ting to a tan, or, as one would say, fan-bird, because 

 the sound produced by the stroke of the wings is very 

 similar to that made by suddenly opening a fan, or 

 striking it forcibly against the air, in two parts of this 

 exercise of the fan which is so humourously described 

 in the Spectator. 



The characters of the genus, taken as a whole, are 

 as follows : the bill short, slender, straight, com- 

 pressed, and enlarged at the tips of both mandibles ; 

 the basal part of the upper mandible furrowed by 

 nasal grooves, in which the nostrils are placed late- 

 rally, and pierced longitudinally in a membrane 

 which covers the groove. The feet are slender, and 

 furnished with four toes, of which three are turned to 

 the front, and the middle one united to the outer by 

 a short membrane. The hind toe is always very 

 short, and sometimes merely rudimental, or entirely 

 wanting ; and it is articulated so high upon the tarsus, 

 that the point of it does not touch the ground in walk- 

 ing. The wings are, generally speaking, pointed ; 

 the first quill is the shortest, and the fourth and fifth 

 are the longest in the wing. In some of the foreign 

 species, the bastard wing is armed with a spur ; and 

 the presence or the absence of this is sometimes made 

 the ground of subdivision, though so far as we are 

 aware there is no other character which depends upon 

 or follows this particular one. 



Lapwings, as we shall see present!}', are highly in- 

 teresting birds, and therefore it is necessary that we 

 should attend with some care to the characters of the 

 three principal parts of their external organisation, the 

 bill, the feet, and the wings. The slenderness and 

 shortness of the bill both tend to give the bird very 

 great command over it ; and the enlargement of the 

 mandibles at the tip enables it to snap and seize with 

 great celerity. This suits well with the chief food of 

 the lapwing, which consists of earth worms and in- 

 sects, the former of which especially are exceedingly 

 sensitive to everything that agitates the surface of the 

 ground, and must be seized in an instant, otherwise 

 they escape into their subterranean retreats. The 

 feet are equally well fitted for light walking at a rapid 

 pace, as the whole of the weight is always borne upon 

 the three toes only, and thus the elasticity of all their 

 joints comes into play ; and the movements of the 

 lapwing upon the ground are inferior in ease and ra- 

 pidity only to those of the few genera of stilt birds, 

 which are entirely destitute of the hind toe, and 

 which are in general much less clever on the wing 

 than the present genus. The wings are, however, 

 perhaps the most beautiful part of the whole structure, 

 admirably as the birds are formed in every respect. 

 They are, as we have noticed, pointed wings, but the 

 point is in the middle of the breadth, so as to divide 

 the horizontal spread of the wing into nearly equal 

 parts ; and what is wanting in this respect is supplied 



