CAR 



CAR 



disorders, to dispel the wind. See PHA3- 



CARMINE, a powder of a very beau- 

 tiful red colour, bordering upon a pur- 

 ple, and used by painters in miniature, 

 though but rarely, because of its great 

 price. 



CARNATION, in botany. See DIAIT- 



THUS. 



CARNATION colour, among painters, is 

 understood of all the parts of a picture, 

 in general, which represent flesh, OP 

 which are naked and without drapery. 



CARNELIAN. See CHALCEDONY. 



CARNIVAL, or CARNAVAL, a time of 

 rejoicing, a season of mirth, observed 

 with great solemnity by the Italians, par- 

 ticularly at Venice, lasting from Twelfth- 

 day till Lent. 



CARNIVOROUS, in zoology, an epi- 

 thet generally applied to animals of every 

 description that subsist for the most part, 

 or entirely, on animal food. In a more 

 limited sense we understand, by carnivo- 

 rous animals, those only of a savage and 

 voracious nature, assimilating in our ideas 

 some instinctive ferocity of character in 

 the manners of those creatures, when 

 seeking and attacking their prey, as well 

 as actually feeding on flesh. We natu- 

 rally consider, for this reason, among the 

 principal carnivorous animals, the lion, 

 the tiger, and the wolf; or among birds, 

 the eagle and the kite; with a host of 

 other rapacious creatures, upon which 

 nature has bestowed pre-eminent advan- 

 tages of courage, strength, and arms, to 

 aid them in seizing upon, and tearing in- 

 to pieces, those animals on which they 

 feed: they have either formidable canine 

 teeth or fangs; claws or talons ; the qua- 

 drupeds possessing both, and the birds 

 the latter. Fishes, with very few excep- 

 tions, are carnivorous, but their only of- 

 fensive weapons are the teeth, or in some 

 species the spines and prickles disposed 

 on various parts of the body. Quadru- 

 peds, that subsist both on flesh and vege- 

 tables, are more or less deficient with re- 

 spect to those characters, by jvhich carni- 

 vorous quadrupeds are known ; and those 

 still more so that subsist entirely on roots, 

 barks, fruits, grass, or other vegetables ; 

 the brutse have no cutting teeth either in 

 the upper or lower jaw ; the pecorae 

 have them only in the lower jaw ; and 

 the front teeth of the bellulx are obtuse. 

 The food of those animals is vegetables. 

 See MAMMALIA. 



Carnivorous animals are characterised 

 both by their internal organization, and 

 their capacity and inclination for the de- 

 giructionof their prey; their teeth arp 



sharp and pointed, even though situated 

 in the back part of the mouth ; and these 

 teeth denominated canine are so long in 

 most of the beasts of prey, that they pass 

 a considerable way beyond each other 

 when the jaws are closed. The distribu- 

 tion of the enamel, which is confined to 

 the superficies of the teeth, renders them 

 extremely hard, and this circumstance, 

 joined to an extraordinary bulk of those 

 muscles employed in raising the lower 

 jaw, gives to carnivorous quedrupeds 

 the power of breaking the strongest 

 bones. 



The rapacious birds are distinguished 

 by a sharp hard bill, furnished on each 

 side with a pointed process, by which 

 they are enabled to tear asunder the 

 parts of the animals they feed upon. As 

 the digestion of animal substances is ac- 

 complished in a short time, the stomach 

 of the carnivorous tribes has a simple fi- 

 gure, without any processes or separations 

 of its cavity, to retain its contents, or to 

 delay their passage into the intestines ; 

 and as animal food furnishes hut little ex- 

 crement, the intestinal canal is short, and 

 either totally unprovided with those di- 

 latations which are so remarkable in ve- 

 getable eaters, or possesses them only in 

 a slight degree. 



Carnivorous anivnals are further distin- 

 guished by the extraordinary strength of 

 their members, which are commonly fur- 

 nished with sharp claws ; these are so 

 contrived, both in the beasts of prey and 

 the accipitrine birds, that they turn in- 

 wards by the flexion of the limbs, or the 

 action of seizing anything, and are re- 

 tracted by the extension of the toes : thus, 

 giving facility and certainty to the cap- 

 ture and retention of fugitive animals. 

 The senses of vision and smell are particu- 

 larly acute in the carnivorous tribes, as it 

 is by means of them that they discover 

 or seek out their prey. 



Carnivorous animals are usually cruel 

 and treacherous in their dispositions ; 

 they are even unsocial with respect to 

 their own species; and hence it is that 

 their numbers are so few, in comparison 

 to that of the graminivorous kind: if it 

 were not for this wise ordinance of na- 

 ture, the defenceless orders of animals 

 would soon be devoured, and the car- 

 nivorous would become the prey of each 

 other. 



CARNOSITY, a term sometimes used 

 for an excrescence, or tubercle, in the 

 urethra, the neck of the bladder, &c. 



CAROLINEA, in botany, a genus of 

 the Monadelphia Polyandria class and or- 

 der. Natural order of Columniferae. Mai- 



