652 
E S O 
ESC 
gitl against a person, committed in the king’s 
bench or Fleet prisons, that, without being 
duly discharged, takes upon him to go at 
large. 
L 1 pon this warrant, which is obtained on 
oath, a person may be apprehended on a 
Sunday. 
ESC HALOT. See Allium. 
ESCHAR, in surgery, the crust or scab oc- 
casioned by burns or caustic medicines. See 
Surgery. 
ESCIIARQTICS, in pharmacy, medi- 
cines which produce eschars. See Eschar. 
ESCHEAT, in our law, denotes an ob- 
struction of tile course of descent,- and a con- 
sequent determination of the tenure by some 
unforeseen contingency ; in which case, the 
land naturally results back, by a kind of re- 
version, to the original grantor, or lord of the 
fee. 2 Black. 244. 
Escheat happens either for want of heirs 
of the person last seized, or by his attain- 
der for a crime by him committed ; in which 
latter case, the blood is tainted, stained, or 
corrupted, and the inheritable quality of it is 
thereby extinguished. 
for want of heirs, is where the tenant dies 
without any relations on the part of any of his 
ancestors, or where he dies without any rela- 
tions of those ancestors, paternal or maternal, 
from whom his estate descended, or where he 
(.lies without any relations of the whole blood. 
Bastards are also incapable of inheritance; and 
therefore if there is no other claimant than 
such illegitimate children, the land shall es- 
cheat to the lord; and, as bastards cannot be 
heirs themselves, so neither can they have any 
heirs but those of their owh bodies ; and there- 
fore if a bastard purchases land, and dies seized 
thereof without issue and intestate, the land 
shall escheat to the lord of the fee. Aliens 
also, that is, persons born out of the king’s al- 
legiance, are incapable of taking by descent ; 
and unless naturalized, are also incapable of 
taking by purchase ; and therefore, if there 
are no natural-born subjects to claim, such 
lands shall in like manner escheat. 
By attainder for treason or other felony, 
the blood of the person attainted is corrupted 
and stained, and the original donation of the 
feud is thereby determined, it' being always 
granted to the vassal on the implied condition 
of his well demeaning himself. In conse- 
quence of which corruption and extinction of 
hereditary blood, the land of all felons would 
immediately revert to the lord, but that the 
superior law of forfeiture intervenes, and in- 
tercepts it in his passage ; in case of treason, 
forever; in case of other felony, for only a 
year and a day ; after which time it goes to 
the lord, in a regular course of escheat. 2 
Black, c. 15. 
ESC HE ATOR, was an antient officer, so 
called because his office was properly to look 
to escheats, wardships, and other casualties 
belonging to the crown. This office had its 
chief dependance on the courts of wards, but 
is now out of date. Co. Lit. 13 b. 4 Inst. 
225. 
ESCHRAKITES, a sect of Mahometans, 
who believe that man’s sovereign good consists 
in the contemplation of God. They avoid all 
manner of vice, and appear always in good 
humour, despising the sensual paradise of 
Mahomet. The most able preachers in the 
royal mosques are of this sect. 
EBCLA 1TE', in heraldry, signifies a thiug 
2 
E S 0 
forcibly broken, or rather a shield that lias 
been broken and shattered with the stroke 
of a battle-ax. 
ESCROW, among lawyers, a deed deli- 
vered to a third person, to be the deed of the 
party making it upon a future condition, that 
when a certain thing is performed, it shall be 
delivered to the party to whom it was made, 
to take effect as the deed of the person lirst 
delivering it. 
ESCUAGE, in our old customs, a kind of 
knight’s-service, called service of the shield, 
by which the tenant was bound to follow his 
lord to the wars at his own charge. It is also 
used tor a sum of money paid to the lord in 
lieu of such service ; or even for a reasonable 
aid, levied by the lord on his tenants who held 
by the knight’s-service. > 
ESCULUS, the horse-chesnut. See iEs- 
CULUS. 
ESCURIAL, a palace of the king of Spain, 
twenty-one miles north-west of Madrid ; be- 
ing one of the largest and most beautiful in 
the world. It has eleven thou -and windows, 
fourteen thousand doors, one thousand 
eight hundred pillars, seventeen cloisters 
or piazzas, and twenty-two courts; with 
every convenience and ornament that can 
render a place agreeable in so hot a cli- 
mate, as an extensive park, groves, fountains, 
cascades, grottos, &c. It is whimsically con- 
structed in the form of a gridiron, being dedi- 
cated to St. Laurence in commemoration of 
a victory, gained on the anniversary of that 
saint (who is said to have been broiled to 
death on a gridiron) in 1557. The apartment 
which the royal family inhabits is the handle ' 
of the instrument. The rest of the building 
contains oftices, a church, a convent (in which 
are 200 monks), and a library containing 
30,000 volumes. 
ESCUTCHEON, in heraldry, is derived 
from the French escusson, and that from the 
Latin scutum, and signifies the shield whereon 
coals of arms are represented. 
Escutcheon of pretence, that on which a 
man carries his wife’s coat of arms ; being an 
heiress, and having issue by her. It is placed 
over the coat of the husband, who thereby 
shows forth his pretensions to her lands. 
ESNECY, in law, a private prerogative al- 
lowed to the eldest coparcener, where an es- 
tate is descended to daughters for want of an 
heir male, to choose first, after the estate of 
inheritance is divided. It has been also ex- 
tended to the eldest son and his issue, hold- 
ing first, this right being jus primogeniture. 
ESOX, pike, a genus of fishes of the order 
abdominales. The generic character is, head 
somewhat Uattened above, mouth wide; teeth 
sharp, in the jaws, palate, and tongue ; body 
lengthened ; dorsal and anal fin (in most spe- 
cies) placed near the tail, and opposite each 
other. There are nine species, of which the 
most remarkable are : 
1. Esox lucius, or common pike. To the 
general history of this fish perhaps little can 
be added to what Mr. Pennant has already de- 
tailed in the third volume of the British Zoo- 
logy. It is, says that agreeable writer, a na- 
tive of most of the lakes and smaller rivers in 
Europe, but the largest are those of Lapland, 
which are sometimes eight feet in length: 
they are taken there in great abundance, 
dried, and exported for sale. The largest 
specimen of English growth is said by Mr. 
Pennant to have weighed thirty-five pounds, 
The head of the pike is very flat ; the upper 
jaw broad, and shorter than the lower, which 
turns up a little at the end, and is marked with 
minute punctures: the teeth are very sharp,, 
disposed only in front of the upper jaw, but 
in both sides of the lower, as well as in the 
roof of the mouth, and often on the tongue: 
the number, according to Bloch, is not less 
than seven hundred, without reckoning the 
farthest of all, or those nearest the throat : it 
is also to be observed that those which are si- 
tuated on the jaws are alternately fixed and 
moveable ; the gape is very wide, and the 
eyes small : the dorsal fin is placed very low 
on the back, and consists of twenty-one rays; 
the pectoral of fifteen ; the ventral of eleven, 
and the anal of eighteen ; the tail is slightly 
forked, or rather lunated. The usual colour 
of this fish is a pale olive-grey, deepest on the 
back, and marked on the sides by several 
yellowish spots or patches: the abdomen is 
white, slightly spotted with black. When in 
its highest perfection however the colours are 
frequently more brilliant ; the sides being of 
a brightolive with yellow spots, the back dark 
green, and the belly silvery. Dr. Bloch as- 
sures us that in Holland the pike is sometimes 
found of an orange-colour, marked with 
black spots : the scales are rather small, hard, 
and of an oblong shape. 
The voracity of the pike is commemorated 
by all ichthyological authors. Mr. Pennant 
observes that he himself has known a pike 
that was choaked in attempting to swallow 
one of its own species which proved too large 
a morsel. It will also devour water-rats, and 
young ducks which happen to be swimming 
near it. In a manuscript note to a copy of 
Plott’s History of Staffordshire, the following 
highly singular anecdote is recorded “ At 
lord Gower’s canal at Trentham, a pike seized 
the head of a swan as she was feeding under 
water, and gorged so much of it as killed 
them both: the servants, perceiving the swan 
with its head under water for a longer time 
than usual, took a boat and found both swan 
and pike dead.” 
But there are instances, says Mr. Pennant, ; 
still more surprising, and which indeed bor- 
der a little on the marvellous. Gesner re- j 
lates that a famished pike in the Rhone, 
seized on the lips of a mule that was brought 
to water, and that the beast drew the fish out 
before it could disengage itself: lie adds that 
people have been bitten by these voracious j 
animals while they were washing their legs, ] 
and that they will even contend with the otter 
for its prey, and endeavour to force it out of 1 
its mouth. 
The smaller kind of fishes are said to shew 
the same uneasiness and detestation at the 
presence of a pike as the smaller birds do at ; 
the sight of a hawk or an owl, and when the 
pike, as is often the case, lies dormant near j 
the surface of the water, are observed to 
swim round in vast numbers, and in the 
greatest anxiety. In the ditches near the 
Thames pike are often haltered in a noose, 
and taken while they lie thus asleep, as they 
are frequently found in the month of May. 
The longevity of the pike is very remark- 
able, if, as Mr. Pennant observes, we may 
credit the accounts given by authors. Rzac- , 
zynski in his Natural History of Poland tells us 
of one that was ninety years old ; but Gesner 
