NUM 



NUT 



Thus, for the year 1808, the dominical 

 letter being B, and the golden number 

 4, we find the number of direction 27, 

 to which add 21, and the sum is 48 from 

 the 1st of March, deduct 31 for the 

 number of days in March, and the re- 

 mainder gives the day of April for Easter 

 Sunday. 



NUMBER, golden, in chronology. See 

 GOLDEX number. 



NUMBER, in grammar, a modification 

 of nouns, verbs, &c. to accommodate 

 them to the varieties in their objects, 

 considered with regard to number. See 

 GRAMMAR. 



NUMBERS, in poetry, oratory, music, 

 &c. are certain measures, proportions, or 

 cadences, which render a verse, period, 

 or song, agreeable to the car. 



NUMERAL letters, those letters of the 

 alphabet which are generally used for fi- 

 gures, as I, V, X, L, C, D, M. 



NUMERATION, or notation, the art of 

 expressing in characters any number pro- 

 posed in words ; or of expressing in words 

 any number proposed in characters. See 

 ARITHMETIC ; NOTATION. 



NUMERICAL, or NUMERAL, some- 

 thing belonging to numbers ; as nume- 

 rical algebra is that which makes use 

 of numbers instead of letters of the al- 

 phabet. Also, numerical difference is 

 the difference whereby one individual 

 is distinguished from another. Hence a 

 thing is said to be numerically the same, 

 when it is so in the strictest sense of the 

 word. 



NUMIDIA, the PINTADO, or gititiea- 

 hen, in natural history, a genus of birds 

 of the order Galling. Generic character: 

 bill strong and short, with a curunculate 

 cere at the base, in which the nostrils are 

 lodged; head horned, with a compressed 

 coloured callus ; wattles hanging from 

 the cheeks ; tail short, and pointing 

 downwards ; body speckled. There are 



four species. N. meleagris, is of the size 

 of a very large fowl, and is the meleagris 

 of the ancients, who used to prize it as a 

 high delicacy. Its native territory is 

 Africa, and particularly, perhaps, Nubia. 

 It is gregarious, having been often seen 

 in very numerous flocks. It is now ex- 

 tremely common in this country. The 

 female lays many eggs, and, secreting 

 her nest, sometimes will suddenly ap- 

 pear with a family of twenty young 

 ones. It is a bird of harsh sound, and 

 almost perpetually uttering it. The 

 flesh of the young birds is valued, and 

 its eggs are thought preferable to those 

 of the common hen. See Aves, ' Plate 

 X.fig.5. 



NUNEZ (PERO), in biography, one of 

 the ablest mathematicians of his time, 

 born at Alcaza do Sal, in Portugal. He 

 taught publicly in the university of Coim- 

 bra, and instructed the Infante de Luis so 

 well, that it is said he fitted him for a 

 professor. Pero Nunez is well known, 

 in the history of science, as the person 

 who made the first improvement in the 

 method of reading an observed angle, 

 and the scale which he invented for 

 this purpose, though it has received 

 some improvements, is still called the 

 Nonius, his latinized name. His works 

 are numerous. 



NUT-^a^/s are excrescences formed 

 on leaves of the oak by the puncture of 

 an insect, which deposits an egg in 

 them. The best are known by the name 

 of Aleppo-galls, imported very largely 

 into this country for the use of dyers, 

 calico-printers, &c. These are hard 

 like wood, of a blueish colour, and of a 

 disagreeable taste. They are partly so- 

 luble in water, and what remains is 

 tasteless and possesses the properties of 

 the fibre of wood. By experiments 

 Mr. Davy found that 500 grains of 

 Aleppo-galls formed with water a sold- 



