PAS 



PAS 



renouncing severe study, and of living 1 so 

 recluse, that he scarcely admitted any 

 person to see him. 



After having thus laboured abundantly 

 in mathematical and philosophical disqui- 

 sitions, he forsook those studies and all 

 human learning at once, to devote him- 

 self to acts of devotion arid penance. He 

 was not twenty -four years of age, when 

 the reading some pious books had put 

 him upon taking this resolution ; and he 

 became as great a devotee as any age has 

 produced. He now gave himself up en- 

 tirely to a state of prayer and mortifica- 

 tion ; and he had always in his thoughts 

 these great maxims of renouncing all 

 pleasure and all superfluity ; and this he 

 practised with rigour even in his illnesses, 

 to which he was frequently subject, be- 

 ing of a very invalid habit of body. He 

 died at the age of thirty -nine. His works 

 were collated and published at the Hague 

 in five volumes 8vo. by the Abbe Bossu, 

 1779. 



PASCAL rents, rents or annual duties 

 paid by the inferior clergy to the bishop 

 or archdeacon, at their Easter visitation. 



PASPALUM, in botany, a genus of the 

 Triandria Digynia class and order. Natu- 

 ral order of Gramina, Gramineae, or 

 Grasses. Essential character : calyx two- 

 valved, orbicular ; corolla of the same 

 size ; stigmas pencilled. There are fif- 

 teen species. All these grasses are of fo- 

 reign growth, none of them natives of 

 Europe. 



PASSAGE. In stat. 4 Edward III. c. 7, 

 this term is used for the hire a man pays 

 for being transported over any sea or 

 river. Various statutes of a local nature 

 have been passed for regulating the pas- 

 sage of particular rivers. By a statute of 

 Edward IV. the passage from Kent to 

 Calais is restrained to Dover. 



PASSAGE, birds of, a name given to those 

 birds which at certain stated seasons of 

 the year remove from certain countries, 

 and at other stated times return to them 

 again, as our quails, woodcocks, storks, 

 nightingales, swallows, and many other 

 species. The generality of birds that re- 

 main with us all the winter have strong 

 bills, and are enabled to feed on what 

 they can find at that season ; those which 

 leave us, have usually very slender bills, 

 and their food is the insects of the fly 

 kind, which disappearing towards the ap- 

 proach of winter, compel them to seek 

 them in the warmer regions where they 

 are to be found. Among the birds of 

 passage, the fieldfare, the redwing, the 

 woodcock, and the snipe, come to us in 



the autumn, at the time when the summer 

 birds are leaving us, and go from us again 

 in spring, at the time when these return ; 

 and of these the two last often continue 

 with us through the summer, and breed; 

 so that the two first seern the only kinds 

 that certainly leave us at the approach of 

 spring, retiring to the northern parts of 

 the continent, where they live during the 

 summer, and breed ; and, at the return 

 of winter, are driven southerly from those 

 frigid climes, in search , of food, which 

 there the ice and snow must deprive 

 them of. 



PASSAGE, right of, in commerce, is an 

 imposition or duty exacted by some 

 princes, either by land or sea, in certain 

 close and narrow places in their territo- 

 ries, on all vessels and carriages, and even 

 sometimes on persons or passengers com- 

 ing in or going out of ports, &c. The 

 most celebrated passage of this kind in 

 Europe is the Sound, the dues for passing 

 which straight belong to the King of 

 Denmark, and are paid at Elsenore or 

 Cronenburg. 



PASSANT, in heraldry, a term applied 

 to a lion, or other animal, in a shield, 

 appearing to walk leisurely: for most 

 beasts, except lions, the term trippant is 

 frequently used instead of passant. 



PASSERES, in natural history, the 

 sixth order of birds, according to the Lin- 

 nxan system ; they are distinguished by a 

 conical and pointed bill ; nostrils oval, 

 pervious, naked ; legs formed for hop- 

 ping; toes slender, divided ; body slen- 

 der, flesh of such as feed on grain pure ; 

 of those which feed on insects impure ; 

 nest formed with much art. They live 

 chiefly in trees and hedges, are monoga- 

 mous, vocal, and feed the young by 

 thrusting the food down their throats. 

 They are thus divided : the genera in A 

 have thick bills, as the 



Colius 



Emberiza 



Fringilla 



Loxia 

 Phitoloma, 



Those in B have the upper mandible 

 somewhat hooked at the point : as the 



Caprimulgus 

 Pipra 



Hirundo. 



Those in C have the upper mandible 

 notched near the end ; as the 



Ampelis 



Muscicapa 



Tanagra 

 T urdus. 



