BOG 
sisting of two valves, and placed on the ger- 
men ; the seed is single, of an oval figure, 
and is contained in the cup. 
BOBBIN, a small piece of wood turned 
in the form of a cylinder, with a little bor- 
der jutting out at each end, bored through 
to receive a small iron pivot. It serves to 
spin with the spinning-wheel, or to wind 
thread, worsted, hair, cotton, silk, gold, 
and silver. 
BOBBING, among fishermen, a particu- 
lar manner of catching eels different from 
sniggling. 
BOB-STAYS, in nautical language, ropes 
Used to confine the bowsprit downward to 
the stem or cut-water. A bob-stay is fixed 
by thrusting one of its ends through a hole 
bored in the fore part of the cut- water for 
this purpose, then splicing both ends toge- 
ther, so as to make it two-fold, or like the 
link of a chain ; a dead-eye is then seized 
into it, and a laniard passing through this 
and communicating with another dead-eye 
upon the bowsprit is drawn extremely 
tight by the help of niechanicalpowers.The 
Use of the bob-stay is to draw down the 
bowsprit, and keep it steady, and to coun- 
teract the force of the stays of the foremast 
Which dvhws it upwards. The bowsprit is 
also fortified by shrouds from the bows on 
each side : on this and other accounts the 
bob-stay is the first part of a ship’s rigging 
which is drawn tight to support the masts. 
BOCARDO, among logicians, the fifth 
mode of the third figure of syllogisms, in 
which the middle proposition is an universal 
affirmative, and the first and last particular 
negatives, thus : 
Bo Some sickly persons arenotstudents ; 
car Every sickly person is pale ; 
no Therefore some persons are pale that 
are not students. 
BOCCONIA, in botany, so called from a 
Sicilian monk, a genus of the Dodocandria 
Monogynia class and order. Natural order 
ofRhoeadeae: Papaveraceae, Jussieu. Es- 
sential character : calyx two-leaved ; corol- 
la none ; style bifid ; berry dry, one-seeded. 
There is only one species, viz. B. frutescens, 
shrubby bocconia, tree celandine, or parrot 
weed, is a shrub rising to the height of ten 
or twelve feet ; with a straight trunk as 
large us a man’s arm, covered with a white 
smooth bark, and branched towards the top. 
The trunk is hollow, filled with a pith, like 
the alder, abounding in a thick yellow juice, 
like argemone and celandine ; branches 
brittle, unequal, marked with scars from 
the fallen leaves leaves from six or seven 
BOD 
inches to a foot in length ; filaments ten, 
seldom more, longer than the leaflets of the 
calyx, hanging down loose ; anthers longer 
than the filaments. It is a native of the 
West India islands, where the juice of it is 
used to take off tetters and warts. 
BOCK-LAND, in the Saxons’ time, is 
what we now call freehold lands, held by 
the better sort of persons by charter or 
deed in writing, by which name it was dis- 
tinguished from folk land, or copyhold land, 
holden by the common people without 
writing. 
BODIANUS, in natural history, a genus 
of fishes of the order Thoraeici, of which 
the generic character is, habit of the genus 
Perea, gill-covers scaly, serrated, and acu- 
leated; scales generally smooth. They are 
divided into two classes, one with divided or 
forked tails : the other with even or 
rounded tail. Dr. Shaw, in his excellent 
zoology, enumerates fifteen species. The 
B. luteus, is about fourteen inches long, 
and in shape like a trout; the colour is 
yellow, each scale being deeply edged or 
tipped with orange ; the back is purplish 
rose-colour >vith scales tipped with blue ; 
tail nearly in the middle, but running into a 
lanceolate tip at each side. It is a native of 
the South America seas. B. pentacanthus, 
or five-, ‘■pined bodian, is about 13 inches 
long, shape nearly as in the luteus, but ra- 
ther more slender, colour beautiful deep 
rose, with a silvery cast on the abdomen ; 
tail deeply forked, the upper lobe stretching 
beyond the lower ; anterior gill-covers 
armed with five strong spines ; it is a na- 
tive of the Brasilian seas, and is very much 
esteemed as food. See Plate II. Pisces, 
fig. 3. 
BODKIN, a small instrument made of 
steel, bone, ivory, &c. used for making 
holes. 
BODY, in physics, an extended solid 
substance, of itself utterly passive and inac- 
tive, indifferent either to motion or rest ; 
but capable of any sort of motion, and of all 
figures and forms. 
Body, in geometry, is a figure extended 
in all directions, or what is usually said to 
consist of length, breadth, and thickness. 
It is usually called a solid. A solid or body 
is conceived to be formed by the motion of 
a surface ; as a surface is by the motion of 
a line, and a line by the motion of a point. 
Similar bodies are in proportion to each 
other, as the cubes of their sides. There 
are. five bodies which are denominated re- 
gular or Platonic bodies; these have all 
SPNMhhI 
