MAN 



MAN 



extensile ; mouth narrowed into a snout; 

 body covered above with rnoveable bony 

 scales. These animals greatly resemble 

 the ant-eater, and feed like that creature 

 by protruding- their tongues into the nests 

 of various species of insects, and retract- 

 ing them with inconceivable suddenness, 

 with their prey attached to the tip. There 

 are three species. M. tetradactyla, the 

 long-tailed manis, has a tail more than 

 twice the length of its body, and is of- 

 ten, in the whole, seen five feet long. Its 

 colour is a dark-brown, with a tinge of 

 yellow, and it displays a verv brilliant 

 gloss. It is perfectly covered, except on 

 the belly, wiih large scales resembling 

 the substance of horn, and which consti- 

 tute a complete defence for it against its 

 enemies, on whose attack it rolls itself up 

 into a form very nearly globular, present- 

 ing on every side impenetrable armour. It 

 is a native of India. 



Manis pentadactyla, the short-tailed 

 manis. This is much thicker and shorter 

 than the former, and is covered with 

 scales still thicker and strong-er. It is 

 found in many parts of India, and, accord- 

 ing to some writers, in Africa, particu- 

 larly in Guinea. It moves with great 

 slowness, but on imminent danger of at- 

 tack, rolls itself up with the compactness 

 of a ball, and defies, in this state, the at- 

 tempts even of some of the larger beasts 

 of prey. It is called in some parts of In- 

 dia the thunderbolt, from the extreme 

 hardness of its scales, which are said to 

 elicit fire from iron, like a flint ; and in 

 other parts it is named the stone-vermin, 

 a quantity of stones being generally found 

 in its stomach, supposed to be swallowed 

 by it for the purpose of digesting its food. 

 It frequents marshy and woody places, 

 and lives almost entirely on insects, parti- 

 cularly on ants. It has been seen of the 

 length of even six feet- See Mammalia, 

 Plate XV. fig. 5. 



MANISURIS, in botany, a genus of 

 the Polygamia Monoecia class and order. 

 Natural order of Gramina, or Grasses. 

 Essential character : hermaphrodite ca- 

 lyx ; glume two-valved, one-flowered, 

 outer valve emarginate at the top and 

 sides ; corolla less than the calyx ; sta- 

 mens three ; style bifid. Male as in the 

 hermaphrodites ; but with the flowers in 

 the lower side of the same spike, stand- 

 ing oat more. There are two species, 

 viz. M. myurus, and M. granularis natives 

 of the East and West Indies. 



MANNA, the food given by the Al- 

 mighty to the children of Israel in the 

 wilderness, is the concrete juice of the 



fraxinus ormis, or flowering ash. The 

 tree is a native of the southern parts of 

 Europe, particularly Sicily and Calabria. 

 Many other trees and shrubs likewise 

 emit a sweet juice, which concretes upon 

 exposure to the air, and may be consi- 

 dered of the manna kind. In Sicily there 

 are three species of fraxinus cultivated 

 for the purpose of procuring manna, and 

 are planted on the declivity of a hill 

 with an eastern aspect. It is full ten 

 years before these trees bear any quantity 

 of manna ; it then exudes spontaneous- 

 ly ; but to obtain it more copiously, in- 

 cisions are made through the bark by 

 means of a sharp crooked instrument ; 

 and the season for performing this is in the 

 middle of the summer. 



MANOMETER, or MANOSCOPE, an 

 instrument to show or measure the alter- 

 ations in the rarity or density of the 

 air. The manometer differs from the 

 barometer in this, that the latter only 

 serves to measure the weight of the at- 

 mosphere, or of the column of air over 

 it : but the former, the density of the 

 air on which it is found ; which density 

 depends not only on the weight of the 

 atmosphere, but also on the action of 

 heat and cold, &c. Authors, however, 

 generally confound the two together; and 

 Mr. Boyle himself gives us a very good 

 manometer of his contrivance, under the 

 name of a statical barometer, consisting 

 of a bubble of thin glass, about the size 

 of an orange, which, being counterpoised 

 when the air was in a mean state of 

 density, by means of a nice pair of scales, 

 sunk when the atmosphere became lighter, 

 and rose as it grew heavier. Other kinds 

 of manometers were made use of by Colo- 

 nel Roy, in his attempts to correct the er- 

 rors of the barometer. " They were," 

 says he, " of various lengths, from four 

 to upwards of eight feet : they consist- 

 ed of straight tubes, whose bores were 

 commonly from one-fifteenth to one-twen- 

 ty-filth of an inch in diameter. The ca- 

 pacity of the tube was carefully mea- 

 sured, by making a column of quicksil- 

 ver, about three or four inches in length, 

 move along it from one end to the other. 

 These spaces were severally marked, 

 with a fine-edged file, on the tubes ; 

 and transferred from them to long slips 

 of pasteboard, for the subsequent con- 

 struction of the scales respectively be- 

 longing to each. The bulb, attached to 

 one end of the manometer at the glass- 

 house, was of the form of a pear, whose 

 point being occasionally opened, dry or 

 moist air could be readily admitted, and 



I 



