TEU 
principally on sliell fisli. They are distin- 
guished by the faculty of inflating or com- 
pressing their bodies at pleasure, and con- 
tinuing in either state for a considerable 
time. During inflation, the spines which 
are scattered over the lower part of the 
body are erected with great intensity. 
There are thirteen species. T. lagocepha- 
lus, or the hare tetrodon, is a foot long, 
vei-y thick in front, but becoming perpe- 
tually more slender towards the tail. It is 
found in the American and Indian Seas, 
has been very rarely taken on the British ^ 
coast, and possesses the power of swelling 
itself to a size truly astonishing. 
T. ocellatus, is seven inches long, and 
particularly abounds about Japan and China. 
It is taken for food, but requires to be 
cleaned with particular accuracy, as certain 
parts of it are reported to be highly poison- 
ous. On this account it is prohibited to 
the military of Japan ; but by a singular and 
capricious distinction is still permitted to 
every other class of subjects. 
For the tortoise-shell tetrodon, see Pisces, 
Plate VI. fig. 4. 
TEUCRIUM, in botany, germander, so 
named from Teucer, son of .Scaraander, and 
fatlicr-in-law of Dardanns King of Troy, a 
genus of the Didynamia Gymnospennia 
class and order. Natural order of Verticil- 
latae. Labiatae, Jussieu. Essential charac- 
ter : corolla, upper lip two-parted beyond 
tlie base, divaricating where the stamens 
are. There are sixty-nine species, 
TEUTHIS, in natural history, a genus of 
fishes of the order Abdominales. Generic 
character: head truncated on the fore-part ; 
gill membrane, with five rays ; teeth equal, 
rigid, approximate, in a single row. There 
are two species. T. hepatus, has a recum- 
bent moveable spine'on each side the tail, 
and inhabits the seas of India and America. 
T. Java, has an unarmed tail, lunated, 
and its body is marked with longitudinal 
black spots. 
TEUTONIC order, a militai 7 order of 
knights, established towards the close of 
the twelfth century, and thus called as con- 
sisting chiefly of Germans or Teutons. The 
origin, &c. of the Teutonic order is said to 
be this. The Christians, under Gny of 
Lusignan, laying siege to Acre, or Aeon, a 
city of Syria, on the borders of the Holy 
Land, some Germans of Bremen and Lu- 
bec, touched with compassion for the sick 
and wounded of the army, who wanted 
common necessaries, set on foot a kind of 
hospital under a tent, which they made of a 
THA 
ship’s sail, and here betook themselves to a 
charitable attendance on them. This start- 
ed a thought of establishing a third military 
order, in imitation of the Templars and Hos- 
pitallers. The design was approved of by 
the patriarch of Jerusalem, the archbishops 
and bishops of the neighbouring places, the 
King of Jerusalem, the masters of the tem- 
ple and hospital, and the German lords and 
prelates then in the Holy Land, and Pope 
Calixtus III. confirmed it by his bull, and 
the new order was called the order of Teu- 
tonic Knights of the House of St. Mary at 
Jerusalem. The Pope granted ^hem all 
the privileges of the Templars and Hospi- 
tallers of St. John, excepting that they were 
to be subject to the patriarchs and other 
prelates, and that they should pay tythe of 
what they possessed. 
TEXT, a relative term, contradistin- 
guished to gloss or commentary, and sig- 
nifying an original discourse exclusive of 
any note or interpretation. This word is 
particularly used for a certain passage of 
scripture, chosen by a preacher to be tha 
subject of his sermon. 
A text-book, in several universities, is a 
classic author written very wide by the 
students, to give room for an interpretation 
dictated by the master or regent to be in- 
serted in the interlines. The Spaniards give 
the name of text to a kind of little poem, or 
set of verses, placed at the head of a gloss, 
and making the subject thereof, each verse 
being explained one after another in the 
course of the gloss. 
THALES, in biography, a celebrated 
Greek philosopher, and the first of the wise 
men of Greece, born at Miletum about 640 
years before the Christian aera. When he 
had acquired the usual learning of his coun- 
try, he travelled into Asia and Egypt, to be 
instructed in geometry, astronomy, and na- 
tural philosophy. On his return he became 
a teacher of youth, and among his disciples, 
which were numerous, were Anaximander, - 
Anaximenes, and "Pythagoras. Thales was the 
author of the Ionian sect of philosophers ; he 
was reckoned, by the best historians, the fa- 
ther of Greek philosophy, being the first that 
made any researches into natural knowledge 
and mathematics. He thought water was the 
principle of which all bodies in the universe 
are composed ; that the world was the 
work of God, whom he regarded as om- 
niscient, and beholding the secret thoughts 
in the heart of man. He maintained that 
real happiness consisted in health , and 
knowledge : that the most ancient of beings 
C c 2 
