NYCTERESITION NYCTICHELIDON. 



The roots of the Nyctagines contain a purgative 

 principle, which renders them useful as cathartics ; 

 one of them was formerly thought to afford the jalap 

 of medicine, and was hence named Mirabilis jalapa, 

 and, although not the true jalap, its roots are not 

 unfrequently powdered and mixed with the genuine 

 drug. 



The Abronias are extremely delicate and beautiful 

 plants, but of no known use. The Pisonias are re- 

 markable for being shrubs and trees in a large group 

 of herbaceous genera. Pisonia aculeata, which is a 

 scrambling tree devoid of beauty, with reclining 

 thorny branches, is very troublesome to travellers in 

 the savannahs of the West Indian isles, by arresting 

 those who endeavour to pass, its strong incurved 

 spines fastening themselves to the clothes and almost 

 forbidding transit. The order contains the following 

 genera, viz., Oxybaphus, Mirabilis, Abronia, Allioma, 

 Boerhaavia, Pisonia, and Boldoa, all noticed under 

 their generic titles. 



NYCTERESITION (Ruiz and Pavon). A South 

 American fruit tree, having pentandrious flowers, and 

 belonging to the natural order Sapotece. This tree 

 was called Chrytophyttum splendens by Sprengel. 

 \ NYCTER1BIA (Latreille). A small but extra- 

 i ordinary genus of wingless insects, very nearly allied 

 to the Hippoboscidec, or forest flies, and exclusively 

 parasitic upon bats. The head is dorsal, very small, 

 and generally bent backwards, and received in a 

 channel which extends nearly to the base of the ab- 

 domen ; the legs are very long ; the basal joint of 

 the tarsi as long as the tibiae ; the base of the middle 

 legs is furnished with a curious comb-like appendage, 

 which is the analogue of the anterior wings ; the 

 head is furnished with signs of variable form, two 

 antennae, and a proboscis. The type of this genus is 

 the Pediculus vespertilionis, Linnaeus. The motions 

 of these insects are exceedingly quick ; and, from the 

 curious position of the head and the direction of the 

 legs, which appear to be dorsal rather than ventral 

 appendages, the movements are very curious. " It 

 transports itself," says Mr. Montagu, " with such 

 celerity from one part of the animal it inhabits to the 

 opposite and most distant, although obstructed by 

 the extreme thickness of the fur, that it is not readily 

 taken. When two or three were put into a small 

 phial, their agility appeared inconceivably great, for 

 as their feet are incapable of fixing upon so smooth 

 a body, their whole exertion was employed in laying 

 hold of each other; and, in this most curious struggle, 

 they appeared actually flying in circles ; and when 

 the bottle \vas reclined, they would frequently pass 

 from one end to the other with astonishing velocity, 

 accompanied by the same gyrations ; if, by accident, 

 they escaped each other, they very soon became 

 motionless, and as quickly were the whole put in 

 motion again by the least touch of the bottle, or the 

 movement of an individual." Linn. Trans., vol. xi., 

 p. 13. There are two British species, whereof figures 

 have been given by Leach and Curtis. A memoir, 

 containing a complete account of the anatomy of these 

 insects, with numerous illustrations, has been published 

 in the first volume of the Transactions of the Zoolo- 

 gical Society of London, in which several new exotic 

 species have been described, and the transformations 

 of this genus proved to be similar to those of Hippo- 

 bosca, thus confirming the affinity between those 

 groups. 



MYCTERIUM (Vcntcnat). A genus of South 



American shrubs, belonging to the fifth class of sexual 

 botany, and to the natural order SolanecE. Generic 

 character : calyx in from five to ten parts ; corolla 

 somewhat rotate and plaited ; anthers connivent, 

 opening by a pore at the apex ; berry from two to 

 four celled. This genus has borne several names", 

 and is generally known as a Solanum. One of (he 

 species, N. amazonium, bears very showy flowers, and 

 is a favourite stove plant. They are propagated by 

 cuttings. 



NYCTICHELIDON Night-swallow. A nu- 

 merous genus, or rather group, of fissirostral birds, 

 forming, along with the day-swallows, the whole of 

 that family of the order Passeres. In respect of 

 names, these birds have been very unfortunate from 

 the earliest periods of natural history, and they re- 

 main so at the present day. The typical bird, which 

 was for a long time the only one known, is very much 

 in the habit of resorting to cool places, where cattle 

 stand when annoyed by flies ; and it stood accused, 

 as early as the days of Aristotle, of sucking goats, 

 although its bill is quite unfit for any kind of suction ; 

 and, instead of doing any harm to ruminating animals 

 when thus attending them, it does them a good deal 

 of service by ridding them of the flies which annoy 

 them. Still the bird got the name of " goatsucker," 

 which name has passed through many languages, 

 has remained to the present time, and has been ap- 

 plied to a great many species which have been dis- 

 covered in foreign countries. To change the name 

 of a number of birds, of which there are good descrip- 

 tions under that name, is always inconvenient, as 

 tending to destroy the general usefulness of first- 

 hand information. The French have accordingly 

 adopted one of their popular names for it, and called 

 it Engouhvent, which means " swallovver of the wind." 

 This is not more correct than the former, though, as 

 the bird flies open-mouthed when feeding, and as its 

 gape is very wide, a large current of air sets into its 

 mouth, and comes out again at the sides, where it 

 m?,kes a peculiar booming or whirring sound, some- 

 thing like that of the old-fashioned wheels used in 

 the hand-spinning of wool. It has got some of its 

 common English names from this sound, such as the 

 " wheel bird," the " churn owl," the "jar owl," and 

 latterly " night-jar," all of which are unfit for scien- 

 tific purposes, and inapplicable to the greater number 

 of the genus. It has also been called the " dor- 

 hawk," partly perhaps from the sound which it emits 

 having some resemblance to that emitted by the 

 dor-beetle, and partly also from the number of those 

 beetles which it captures. It has also been called 

 the " fern owl," from its proneness to hawk about fern 

 brakes in quest of its prey ; and, among other names, 

 the French have called it the " flying toad." 



This multiplicity of names is a matter of small con- 

 sequence in itself ; but it serves to show the interest 

 which the bird has attracted ; and it must be admitted 

 that this, the typical bird, is not only a very curious 

 creature, but the family or subfamily of which it is 

 the type is one of the most curious in the list of 

 birds. The members of it differ greatly from each 

 other in numerous respects, and these differences are 

 often in points so essential that a subdivision into at 

 least two genera has become necessary, in order that 

 the generic characters might be more easily expressed 

 and more clear. There is still, however, too much 

 resemblance between the members of these two 

 genera for admitting the perfect separation of the 



