RAM 



KAN 



This bird is in great esteem for the table. 

 Inhabits Europe. 



RAM, in zoology, the male of the sheep 

 kind. See Ovis. 



RAM, battering, in antiquity, a military 

 engine used to batter and beat down the 

 walls of places besieged. The battering- 

 ram was of two sorts, the one rude and 

 plain, the other compound. The former 

 seems to have been no more than a great 

 beam which the soldiers bore on their 

 arms and shoulders, and with one end of 

 it by main force assailed the wall. The 

 compound ram is thus described by Jo- 

 aephus : it is a vast beam, like the mast 

 of a ship, strengthened at one end with a 

 head of iron, something resembling that 

 of a ram, whence it took its name. 



RAM'S head y in a ship, is a great block 

 belonging to the fore and main halliards. 

 It has three shivers in it, into which the 

 halliards are put, and in a hole at the end 

 of it are reeved the ties. 



RAMMER of a gun, the gun-stick, a 

 rod used in charging of a gun, to drive 

 home the powder, as also the shot and 

 the wad, which keeps the shot from roll- 

 ing out. The rammer of a great gun is 

 used for the same purpose. It has a 

 round piece of wood at one end, and the 

 other is usually rolled in a piece of sheep 

 skin, fitted to the bore of the piece, and 

 is used to clear her after she has been 

 discharged, which is called sponging the 

 piece. 



RAMPANT, in heraldry, a term ap- 

 plied to a lion, leopard, or other beast 

 that stands on his hind legs, and rears 

 up his fore feet in the posture of climb, 

 ing, shewing only one half his face, as 

 one eye, &c. It is different from salient, 

 in which the beast seems springing for- 

 ward as if making a sally. 



RAMPART, in fortification, is an ele- 

 vation of earth round a place, capable of 

 resisting the cannon of an enemy, and 

 formed into bastions, curtins, &.c. A ram- 

 part ought to be sloped on both sides, and 

 to be broad enough to allow room for the 

 marching of waggons and cannon, beside 

 that allowed for the parapet which is raised 

 on it : its thickness is generally about ten 

 or twelve fathom, and its height not 

 above three, which is sufficient to cover 

 the houses from the battery of the can- 

 non. The rampart is encompassed with 

 a ditch, and is sometimes lined or fortified 

 on the inside. Upon the rampart the 

 soldiers continually keep guard, and pie- 

 ces of artillery are planted there for the 

 Defence of the place. 



RAMPART, in civil architecture, is used 



for the space left between the wall of a 

 city, and the next houses. 



RAMPHAS TOS, the toucan, in natural 

 history, a genus of birds of the order Pi- 

 cx. Generic character : bill extremely 

 large, hollow, carinated on the top, and 

 serrated at the edges ; nostrils long, nar- 

 row, and behind the base of the bill ; 

 tongue ciliated. These birds have been 

 met with only in South America, and 

 there merely between the tropics, being 

 totally incapable of sustaining the cold. 

 They subsist on fruits, particularly of the 

 palm tree. They build in the hollows of 

 trees, and generally in recesses previous- 

 ly formed for the same purpose by the 

 woodpecker, their own bill being exqui- 

 sitely tender. They are easily tamed and 

 familiarized, and several species have 

 been brought to England, where fruits, 

 fish, and flesh, have been promiscuously 

 devoured by them with considerable vo- 

 racity. Whatever was received by the 

 bill was thrown into the air, and on its re- 

 turn caught, and without the slightest 

 mastication, or almost compression, instan- 

 taneously swallowed. The climate alone 

 appeared to disagree with them. There 

 are seventeen species enumerated by 

 Gmelin, and fifteen by Latham. For the 

 yellow-throated toucan, see Aves, Plate 

 XIII. fig. 2. 



RAN, an old English word, denoting 

 open and barefaced robbery : hence has 

 obtained the phrase, " he has taken all 

 he can rap and ran." The word has 

 been defined by law writers : * Ran dici- 

 tur aperta rapina quse negari non potest." 



RANA, the/reg-, in natural history, a 

 genus of Amphibia of the order Reptiles. 

 Generic character : body four-footed, tail- 

 less, and without any integument but the 

 skin ; hind legs longer than the fore. 

 There are thirty -six species, of winch the 

 following deserve the chief attention : 



R. bufo, the toad, is found in shady and 

 damp situations throughout Europe, 

 and often is met with in cellars, conceal- 

 ed in recesses and holes, which it some- 

 times prepares for itself, but generally 

 finds already accommodated to its pur- 

 pose. In spring it moves towards the 

 water, and lays its ova in a brilliant band 

 of glutinous substance, several feet in 

 length. The ova appear like beads of jet, 

 and in fourteen days these convolved lar- 

 vje are developed and swim about, nour- 

 ishing themselves by insects and vegeta- 

 ble substances, till their tail disappears, 

 and their legs are formed, and they pass 

 from water to land. The toad is always 



