go r 
GOR 
G O S 
A binding to tlie good behaviour is not by 
way of punishment ; but it is to shew, that 
when a man lias broken the good behaviour, 
he is not tube trusted. 12 Mod. 566. 
Justices of peace may chastise rioters, bar- 
rators, and other offenders, and also imprison 
and punish them according to law, and by 
discretion and good advisement ; and also 
bind persons of evil fame to the good beha- 
viour, &c. 34 Ed. III. c. 1. 
This statute being penned in such general 
words, seems in a great measure to have left 
it to tiie discretion of justices of the peace, to 
determine what persons should be bound to 
their good behaviour; and consequently seems 
to empower them, not only to bind over 
those who seem to be notoriously trouble- 
some, and likely to break the peace, as eves- 
•droppers, &c: but also those who are publicly 
•scandalous, or contemners of justice, &c. as 
haunters of bawdy-houses, or keepers of lewd 
women in their own houses ; common drunk- 
ards, or those who sleep in the day and go 
abroad in the night, or such as keep suspi- 
cious company, or such as are generally sus- 
pected as robbers ; or such as speak contemp- 
tuous words of superior magistrates, as justices 
of peace, mayors, &c. not being in the actual 
execution of their office, or of inferior officers 
of justice, as constables, &c. being in the ac- 
tual execution of their office ; but it seems that 
rash, quarrelsome, or unmannerly words, 
•spoken by one private person to another, 
unless they directly tend to a breach of the 
peace, are not sufficient cause to bind a man 
to his good behaviour. 1 Haw. 153. 
G OODEN 1A, a genus of the pentandria 
monogvnia class and order. The corolla is 
five-cleft; anthers linear; stigma cup-shaped, 
ciliated; caps. two-cel!ed, two-valved. Seeds 
many, imbricated. There are nine species, 
shrubs of South Wales. 
GOOSE. See Anas. 
GOOSEBERRY, grossularia. See Rises. 
GOOSE-EMBER. See Marcus. 
GOOSE-NECK, in a ship, apiece of iron 
fixed on the end of the tiller, to which the 
laniard of the whip-staff, or the wheel-rope 
comes, for steering the ship. 
Goose-wing, in the sea-language. When 
a ship sails before, or with, a quarter-wind on 
a fresh gale, to make the more haste, they 
launch out a boom, and sail on the lee-side; 
and a sail so fitted, is called a goose-wing. 
GORDIUS, the hair-worm, a genus 'of in- 
sects belonging to the class of vermes intes- 
tina. There are several species: 1. The aqua- 
iicus, or water hair-worm, is 10 or 12 inches 
in length, and of about the thickness of a 
horse-hair ; its skin is smooth, and .somewhat 
glossy, without furrows ; its colour pale-yel- 
lowish white all over, except the head and 
tail, which are black and glossy. The body 
is rounded, and very slender in proportion to 
its length ; the mouth is small, and placed 
horizontally;- the jaws are both of the same 
length, and obtuse at their extremities. Thi§ 
species is common in our fresh waters, more 
especially in clay, through which it passes as 
a iish does through the water, and is the author 
of many springs. It is a variety of this worm 
that in Guinea, and. in some other of the hot 
countries, gets into the flesh of the natives, 
and occasions great mischief ; with us, though 
frequent enough in water where people bathe, 
it never attempts this. 2. The argillaceous, 
«r day hair-worm, is only a variation of the 
preceding one in colour, being yellowish at 
the extremities. It chiefly inhabits the clay ; 
Linnaeus calls that its proper element, from 
its being generally dug out of it. 3. The 
medinensis, or muscular hair-worm, is all 
over of a pale-yellowish colour. It is a native 
of both Indies ; frequent in the morning dew, 
whence it enters the naked feet of the slaves, 
and occasions a disease much known in those 
countries, and to which children are very 
liable; it creates the most troublesome itch- 
ings, and too often excites a fever and inflam- 
mation. It particularly attacks the muscles 
of the arms and legs, whence it may be 
drawn out by means of a piece of silk or 
thread tied round the head; imt the greatest 
caution is necessary in this simple operation, 
lest the animal, by being strained too much, 
should break; for if any part remains under 
the skin, it quickly grows with redoubled 
vigour, and becomes a cruel, and sometimes 
fatal enemy to the poor slaves in particular. 
Baths with infusions of bitter plants, and all 
vermifuges, destroy it. 4. The marinus, or 
sea hair-worm, is filiform, twisted spirally 
and lying flat, about half an inch in length ; 
of a whitish colour, smooth, and scarcely di- 
minishing at the head. It is as great a tor- 
mentor of herrings, bleaks, and various other 
fish, as the gordius medinensis is of man. The 
fish, when infested with these animals, rise to 
the surface, and tumble about as if in great 
agony. 
GORDONIA, a genus of the polyandria 
order, in the monadelphia class of plants. 
The calyx is simple; the style five-cornered, 
with the stigma quinquefid ; the capsule quin- 
quelocular ; the seeds two-fold, with a leafy 
wing. There are three species. The lasian- 
thus is a tall and very straight tree, with a 
regular pyramidal head. Its leaves are shaped 
like those of the common bay, but serrated. 
It begins to blossom in May, and continues 
bringing forth its flowers the greatest part of 
the summer. The flowers are fixed to foot- 
stalks, four or five inches long; are monope- 
talous, divided into five segments, encom- 
passing a tuft of stamina headed with yellow 
apices ; these flowers, in November, are suc- 
ceeded by a conic capsula, having a divided 
calyx. The capsula, when ripe, opens and 
divides into five sections, disclosing many 
small half-winged seeds. This tree retains its 
leaves all the year, and grows only in wet 
places, and usually in water. The wood is 
somewhat soft; yet Mr. Catesby mentions 
his having seen some beautiful tables made 
ofit. It grows iu Carolina, but not in any of 
the more northern colonies. 
GORGON I A, in natural history, a genus 
of zoophytes, which formerly were called ce- 
ratophytons, and are known in English by 
the names of sea-fans, sea-feathers, and sea- 
whips. Linhseus and Dr. Pallas consider 
them as of a mixed nature in their growth, 
between animals and vegetables: but Mr. 
'Ellis shows them to be true animals of the 
polype kind, growing up in a branched form 
resembling a shrub, and in nqgpart vegetable. 
They differ from the fresh-water polype in 
many of the qualities, and particularly in 
producing from their own substance a hard 
and solid support, serving many of the pur- 
poses of the bone in other animals. This is 
formed by a concreting juice, thrown out 
from a peculiar set of longitudinal parallel 
tubes, running hlong the internal surface of 
80 3 
the fleshy part : in the coats of these tubes 
are a number of small orifices, through which 
the osseous liquor exudes, and concreting, 
forms the layers of that hard part of the an- 
nular circles, which some, judging from the 
consistence rather than the texture, have er- 
roneously denominated wood. The surface 
of the gorgonia is composed of a kind of 
scales, so well adapted to each other, as to 
serve for defence from external injuries ; and 
the flesh, or, as some have called it, the bark 
or cortex, consists of proper muscles and ten- 
dons for extending the opening of their cells ; 
for sending forth from thence their polype 
suckers in search of food, arid for drawing 
them in suddenly, and contracting the sphinc- 
ter muscles of these starry cells, in order to 
■ secure these tender parts from danger ; and 
also of proper secretory ducts, to furnish and 
deposit the osseous matter that forms- the 
stem and branches as well as the base of the 
bone. Mr. Ellis affirms, that there are ova- 
ries in these animals, and thinks it very pro- 
bable that many. of them are viviparous. See 
Corallines, and Zoophytes. 
GORE, in heraldry, one of the abatements,, 
which, according to Guillim, denotes a cow- 
ard. It is a figure consisting of two arch 
lines drawn one from the sinister chief, and 
the other from the sinister base, both meet- 
ing in an acute angle in the middle of the 
fess point. 
Gore, in law, signifies a narrow slip of 
ground. 
GOREING, in the sea-language, sloping. 
A sail is cut goveing, when it is cut sloping 
by degrees, and is broader at the clew than 
at the earing, as all topsails and top-gallant 
sails are. 
GORGE, in fortification, the entrance of 
the platform of any work. See Fortifi- 
cation. 
In all the outworks, the gorge is the inter- 
val betwixt the wings on the side of the great 
ditch, as the gorge of a ravelin, half-moon, 
&c. These, it is to be observed, are ail 
destitute of parapets; because if there were 
any, the besiegers, having taken possession 
of the work, mightuse it to defend themselves 
from the shot of the place ; which is the rea- 
son that they are only fortified with paii- 
■ sadoes, to prevent a surprise. 
The gorge of a bastion is nothing but 
the prolongation of the curtins from their 
angle with the flanks, to the centre of the 
bastion where they meet. When the bastion 
is flat, the gorge is a right line, which termi- 
nates the distance between the two flanks. 
GORGED, in heraldry, the hearing of a 
crown, coronet, or- the like, about the neck 
of a lion, a swan, &rc. and in that case it is 
said, the lion or cygnet is gorged with a ducal 
coronet, &c. 
GORTERIA, a genus of the class and 
order syngenesia polygamia ffustranea class 
and order. Tire calyx is intricate; corolla 
of the ray ligulate ; down, woolly ; recep- 
tacle, naked. There are 13 species, mostly 
shrubby plants of the Cape. 
GOSHAWK. See Falco. 
GOSSAMER is the name of a fine filmy 
substance, like cobweb, which is seen to float 
in the air in clear days in autumn, and is 
more observable in stubble-fields, and upon 
furze and other low bushes. This is pro- 
bably formed by the flying-spider, which, m 
2 
