HOL 



HOM 



nients of a Natural Method," consisting 

 of pot-herbs, or plants used for the table, 

 and entering into the economy of domes- 

 tic affairs. This order is separated into 

 two divisions. 1. Hermaphrodite plants. 

 2. Male, female, androgynous, and poly- 

 gamous plants. This order contains trees, 

 shrubs, and perennial and annual herbs ; 

 some of the woody vegetables, as the bay, 

 retain their green leaves during the win- 

 ter; the roots are long; the stems and 

 young branches are cylindric. In the 

 greatest part of the aquatic plants of this 

 order, the stalks are hollow within ; the 

 buds are of a conical form ; the leaves are 

 generally simple, alternate, entire, and 

 attached to the branches by a cylindric 

 foot-stalk, which is sometimes very long, 

 but generally short. 



HOLOSTEUM, in botany, a genus of 

 the Triandria Trigynia class and order. 

 Natural order of Caryophyllei. Essential 

 character : calyx five-leaved ; petals five ; 

 capsule one-celled, subcylindrical, open- 

 ing at top. There are five species. 



HOLOTHURIA, in natural history, a 

 genus of the Vermes Mollusca class and 

 order. Body detached, cylindrical, thick, 

 naked, and open at the extremity ; mouth 

 surrounded by fleshy branched tentacula 

 or feelers. These are all inhabitants of 

 the sea, and expand or contract them- 

 selves at pleasure ; the anterior aperture 

 serves them both^s a mouth and vent, 

 and from the hinder one they reject wa- 

 ters which had been previously drawn in ; 

 the tentacula are retractile. There are 

 twenty-three species. H. pentactes, or 

 five-rowed Holothuria is noticed by Pen- 

 nant. It has an incurvated cylindric body, 

 marked with longitudinal rows of papillae ; 

 out of the centre of each issue at plea- 

 sure, slender feelers like the horns of 

 snails; the upper extremity retractile; 

 when exerted it assumes a cordated form, 

 surrounded at the apex with eight tenta- 

 cula, elegantly ramified, of a yellow and 

 silver colour. It is found on the shores 

 near Penzance. H. tremula is a foot long, 

 inhabits the Mediterranean and Adriatic 

 seas; the body is cylindrical when extend- 

 ed, and oblong when contracted ; it is va- 

 rious in colour, but generally of a beauti- 

 ful mixture of red and white ; the cylin- 

 drical tubes beneath the body act as so 

 many suckers, by which the animal fixes 

 itself firmly to the bottom of the sea. 

 Another curious species noticed by Gme- 

 lin is H. denudata, is oblong, with inter- 

 rupted lateral lines, and without a crest 

 or tail, inhabits the American ocean. It 

 is three t>r four inches long, with a body 



slowly tapering at both ends, transparent, 

 of a firm gelatinous consistence and hol- 

 low, opening by a small triangular aper- 

 ture next the crest, and a narrow round 

 one at the other extremity; they have. a 

 spiral milky line down the back, under 

 this another larger opaque one, and on 

 each side below these another smaller 

 purple one. They are sometimes found 

 single, and frequently sticking length- 

 ways together. The word holothuria is 

 used by Pliny and Aristotle ; but Mr. 

 Pennant supposes they both intended, un- 

 der this name, to describe those marine 

 bodies now denominated zoophyta. Aris- 

 totle, however, seems to have admitted 

 that they possessed animal life, a circum- 

 stance that has in modern times been 

 completely ascertained. 



HOMALIUM, in botany, a genus of the 

 Polyandria Trigynia class and order. Na- 

 tural order of Rosace ae, Jussieu. Essen- 

 tial character : calyx six or seven parted; 

 corolla six or seven petalled; stamens 

 twenty -one, in three bodies ; pericarpium 

 one-celled, many seeded. There are two 

 species. 



HOMER, OMSR, Conns, or CHOMER, 

 in Jewish antiquities, a measure contain- 

 ing ten baths, or seventy -five gallons and 

 five pints, as a measure for things liquid ; 

 and thirty-two pecks and one pint, as a 

 measure for things dry. The homer was 

 most commonly a measure for things dry, 

 and the greatest that was used among the 

 Jews : it contained, according to the Rab- 

 bins, ten ephas, or thirty fata or seahs. 

 Corus is the most usual term in the his- 

 torical writers, and homer, omer, or cho- 

 mer, among the prophets. 



HOMICIDE, in law, is the killing of a 

 man by a man. Of this there are several 

 species, as homicide by self-defence, 

 homicide by misadventure, justifiable ho- 

 micide, man-slaughter, chance-medley, 

 and murder. Homicide by self-defence, 

 se defendendo, or in a man's own defence, 

 is where one has no other possible means 

 of preserving his life from one who com- 

 bats with him on a sudden quarrel, and 

 kills the person by whom he is reduced 

 to such inevitable necessity. And not 

 only he, who on assault retreats to a 

 wall, or some such strait, beyond which 

 he can go no farther, before he kills the 

 other, is judged by the law to act upon 

 unavoidable necessity ; but also he, who 

 being assaulted in such a manner, and in 

 such a place, that he cannot go back with- 

 out manifestly endangering his life, kills 

 the other without retreating at all. And 

 though a person who retreats from j.n as- 



