WEA 



INDEX. 



win 



w. 



Wulfischoas, whales' provender, insects floating in clusters on 

 the surface of the sea, and called Medusa by Linnsjus, 619. 



Walnut-trees, with walnuts on the stern, leaves, and branches, in 

 exact preservation, found at twenty-six feet depth round the city 

 of Modena in Italy, 83. 



Wandcroui, a baboon, less than the mandril: its description, 

 406. 



ll'itnnp, doff of the monirrel kind, in the third division of Dr. 

 Ca:us. 313. 



Warbling of birds, so loud and various in modulation, not easily 

 to be accounted for, 451. 



Warine, the Brazilian guariba, largest of the monkey kind in 

 America, 4 12. 



Waree, hog of the isthmus of Darien, described by Wafer, 286. 



Wasps, ruminating insects, or seemingly such, 232 ; their de- 

 scription itnd habits; their habitation scarcely completed when the 

 inhabitant dies ; have two or three hundred queens in a hive ; their 

 nest a most curious object ; the social wasps gather no honey them- 

 selves, though fond ot sweets ; fierce battles with the bees, who 

 make up by conduct and numbers the deficiency of prowess ; their 

 depredations ; where found, other flies desert the place ; live but 

 one season ; cannot endure winter ; before new-year they wither 

 and die, having butchered thnir young ; in every nest one or two 

 females survive ; impregnated the preceding season, she begins in 

 spring to lay eggs ; and before June produces ten thousand young, 

 which are nursed and fed by her atone ; solitary wasp, its manners ; 

 provisions made for the young at leaving the egg ; the provisions 

 arranged and laid in, the old one closes the hole and dies ; the 

 young leaving the egg are scarcely visible ; how the life of the 

 young is spent ; wasps of Europe innocent compared to those of 

 the tropical climates ; description of those of the West Indies, and 

 their habits ; pains of their sting insupportable, more terrible than 

 that of a scorpion, the part swells, and people are so disfigured as 

 scarce to be known, 809 to 8) II. 



Water, its parts infinitely small ; driven through the pores of 

 gold ; penetrating through all substances, except glass ; enter the 

 composition of all bodies, vegetable, animal, and fossil ; birds, 

 beasts, fishes, insects, trees, and vegetables, with their parts, have 

 growth from it, and by putrefaction become water ; gives all other 

 bodies firmness and durability ; a phial, hermetically sealed, kept 

 fifty years, deposed no sediment, and continued transparent ; 

 gathered after a thunder-clap, in sultry weather, deposits a real 

 salt ; spring water collected from the air ; of river waters, the 

 Indus and the Thames otter the most light and wholesome ; light- 

 ness, and not transparency, the test of purity ; purest waters distil- 

 led from snow on tops of highest mountains ; different kinds, and 

 adapted to different constitutions ; very transparent ; fresh-water 

 at sea, putrefies twice, sometimes thrice, in a voyage; a month at 

 sea, sends up a noisome and dangerous vapour, wliich takes fire 

 from a flame ; elementary water not compounded is ice kept in 

 fusion ; dilates in bulk by cold ; confirmed by experiments, 48 to 

 5'J ; very compressible and elastic; made to resemble air; a drop 

 of water converted into steam, capable of raising twenty ton 

 weight ; keeps its surface level and even ; a single quart sufficient 

 to burst a hogshead, and how, 52 to 55 ; water of the sea heavier 

 and more buoyant than fresh-water, 71. 



ll'ittfr-spoiits burst from the sea, and join mists immediately 

 above them, 110 ; most surprising phenomena, dreadful to ma- 

 riners, and astonishing to observers of nature ; common in the 

 tropical seas, sometimes in our own ; description of those seen by 

 Tournefort in the Mediterranean, 114; solutions offered for this 

 surprising phenomenon, 115. 



IViiter-icngtoil . slender-billed bird of the sparrow kind. 537. 



Wtivts, their luminous appearance in the night, and the cause, 

 72. 73. 



Wax, the first fifteen days the bees make more wax than during 

 the rest of the vear. H06 ; of two k-ndd gathered by common bees ; 

 ti) it. produced by black bees in tropical climated only used for 

 medicinal purposes, being too soft for candles, as in Europe, r07. 



Weasel, a small carnivorous animal ; mark*, common to the kind ; 

 th'-s" differ from the cat kind in the formation :md disposition of 

 cirri's, : differ from the dog kind in a clothing of fur rattier than 

 hair: one of the species is like all the rest ; this the smallest of tiie 

 whole kind ; its description ; untame'ible and uritntctable ; hides 

 and sleeps three parts of the day, and sallies forth for prey in the 

 evening ; attacks animals much above its own size ; catches rats 

 and aice better than cats ; also small birds ; destroys youn<* poul- 

 try, and svicks the eggs ; so nimbly runs up high A-ills, no place is 

 secure from it , in cultivated lands, it thing the number of hurtful 



vermin ; never cries but when struck ; all the kind have gland* 

 near the anus, secreting a substance fcetid in some, and a perfumo 

 in others; this most offensive in summer, and insufferable when ir- 

 ritated ; one sort in America is by sailors called the stinkard ; con- 

 fined to a cage, is ever in uneasy agitations ; must have leave to 

 hide itself; eats only by stealth, and will not touch the foou until it 

 begins to putrefy ; the female makes an easy bed for her young, and 

 generally brings forth from three to five at a time, and with closed 

 eyes; account of a weasel's forming her nest, and bringing forth 

 her young, in the putrid carcass of a wolf; the white ermine found 

 in Great Britain is called the white weasel ; its fur among us of no 

 value, 328, 329 ; of the weasel kind, the martin most pleasing, 334 ; 

 the boldest and most useful of all is the ichneumon, 337. See 

 Stinkard, 338. 



Weather, the moist alone prevents evaporation, 108. 



Weathercocks, often erroneous with Derham in regard to upper 

 regions, 103. 



Weever, the trachinus, a prickly-finned jugular fish, its descrip- 

 tion, 648; the sting given by its back-fin is poisonous, 660. 



Weed, floating over great tracts of the sea, serve as sustenance 

 for many fish, bearing similitude with such vegetables, 120. 



Weight of the human body often found to differ from itself; in- 

 stances of it ; the difference often amounts to a pound, or sometimes 

 to a pound and a half; not easy to conceive whence this adventi- 

 tious weight is derived ; the porters of Constantinople carry burdens 

 of nine hundred pounds weight ; a man able to raise a weight of 

 two thousand pounds ; a horse will not carry upon his back above 

 two or three hundred pounds; whence this seeming superiority 

 comes, 149. 



H'fll, burning, at Brosely, now stopped, had a fire-damp in it, 

 which would kindle with the flame of a candle, 55 ; some continue 

 full, neither affected by rain or droughts, 83. 



Wetland, river near Spalding, has amazing shoals of sticklebacks, 

 656. 



Wert (Sfbald} a traveller, confirms the existence of giants, on a 

 coast of South America, towards the straits of Magellan, 19 J. 



Whale, the largest animal known ; no precise anatomy of this 

 fish yet given ; two centuries ago, they were described two hun- 

 dred and fifty feet long; Biscayneers practised the whale-fishery 

 near Greenland soon after the year 1300; seven different kinds 

 distinguished by external figure or internal conformation ; are gre- 

 garious animals ; make migrations from one ocean to another, and 

 generally resort whore they have the least dinturbance ; great 

 Greenland whale ; its description ; from sixty to seventy feet long ; 

 the head one-third of its bulk, its hearing is acute ; breathes air at 

 the surface of the water, and cannot remain under it like other 

 fishes ; it blows loudly through the spout-holes, and most fiercely 

 when wounded ; whalebone different from the bones of the body ; 

 the fins are from five to eight feet long ; the throat is narrow ; 

 nothing larger than a herring can be swallowed ; the tail, its only 

 weapon of defence, is twenty-four feet broad, and strikes hard blows; 

 one seen by Ray marbled, with the figures 122 distinctly marked 

 upon it ; the blubber and other parts turn out to very good account ; 

 the flesh palatable to some nations; the female and male keep 

 much together ; their fidelity exceeds that of birds ; do not cross 

 breeds ; she goes with young nine months, is then fatter than at 

 other times ; produces two breasts and teats at pleasure ; suckles 

 her young a year, and how ; is very tender of them ; defends them 

 fiercely when pursued; instance of it; dives with them, and comes 

 up soon to give them breath ; during the first year called short- 

 heads, and then yields fifty barrels of blubber; at two years they 

 are called stunts, and after that skull-fish ; the food of this animal 

 an insect called medusa by Linntcus, and walfischoas by the Ice- 

 landers ; pursues no other fish, and is inoffensive in its element ; 

 the whale-louse, of the shell-fish kind, sticks to its body as to 

 the foul bottom of a ship, gets under the fins, and eats through the 

 skin into the fat; the sword-fUh affrights the whale, avoids the 

 stroke of its tail, bounds upon its back, and cuts into it with tlie 

 toothed edges of its bill ; the killer, a cetaceous fish of great 

 st.remrth, with powerful teeth, beset the whale as dogs do a bull, 

 teiir it down, and then devour only its tongue ; old manner of taiing 

 the whale ; improvements hinted. 614 to 621. 



Whale (Spr.rma.ceti.) See CarkuJut. 



Wheat and currants, swallowed whole, indigestible to man. 460. 



Wheat-ear, a short-billed bird of the sparrow kind, thought 

 foreign, 537. 



Wk'm-r.hat, a slender-billed bird of the sparrow kind, 537. 



Whip-sntike, a very venomous serpent of the East, is five feet 

 long, and its bite kills in six hours time ; happy preservation from 

 one of them, 738. 



Whirlpool, the ceutial point always Jowcrt, and why, 60 ; man- 



