FRI 
great richness and variety of notes, and ex- 
traordinary power in imitating sounds. F. 
canaria, or canary finch. These birds con- 
stitute, to some little extent, an article of 
commerce, being exported from the Tyrol 
in considerable numbers every year to va- 
rious other parts of Europe. Buffon enu- 
merates no fewer than 29 varieties, and de- 
votes 50 pages of his celebrated work to an 
interesting detail of their manners, habits, 
and song. They are bred and reared in Eng- 
land in aviaries with great facility ; and the 
fidelity of their attachments, and delicacy of 
their attentions, their extreme neatness, pa- 
rental affection, and animated and almost in- 
cessant music, constitute a source of pure and 
exquisite entertainment to all the admirers 
of artless and interesting nature. F. linaria, 
or the linnet, is to be met with in every part 
of Europe, and is particularly common in 
England, where it builds, generally, in 
thorns and furze bushes, and breeds twice 
in the year. Linnets feed on various seeds ; 
but particularly relish those of the flax plant, 
from the Latin name for which flinumj they 
probably derive their name. They can be 
taught the notes of various other birds, and 
even to utter words with very distinct enun- 
ciation ; but their natural song, expressive 
of tranquillity and rapture, and poured out 
in a strain of richly varied melody, is infi- 
nitely superior to these unmeaning and ela- 
borate articulations. For the red-pole and 
the mountain-sparrow, see Aves, Plate VI. 
fig. 7 and 8. 
FRIT, in the glass manufacture, the mat- 
ter or ingredients whereof glass is to be 
made, when they have been calcined or 
baked in a furnace ; or it is the calcined 
matter to be run into glass. See Glass. 
FRITILLARIA, in botany, imperial 
fritillary, or crown imperial, a genus of the 
Hexandria Monogynia class and order. 
Natural order of Coronariae. Lilia, Jus- 
sieu. There are five species with many va- 
rieties. 
FRIZING of cloth, a term in the woollen 
manufactory, applied to the forming of the 
nap of a cloth, or stuff, into a number of lit- 
tle hard burrs or prominences, covering al- 
most the whole ground thereof. Some 
cloths are only freezed on the backside, as 
black cloths ; others on the right side, as 
coloured and mixed cloths, rateens, bays, 
freezes, &c. Frizing may be performed 
two ways ; one with the hand, that is, by 
means of two workmen, who conduct a 
kind of plank that serves for a frizing in- 
strument. 
FRO 
The other way is by a mill, worked either 
by water, or a horse, or sometimes by men. 
This latter is esteemed the better way of 
frizing, by reason the motion being uniform 
and regular, the little knobs of the frizing 
are formed more equably and regularly. 
The structure of this useful machine is as 
follows : 
The three principal parts are the frizer 
or crisper, the frizing-table, and the drawer, 
or beam. The two first are two equal 
planks or boards, each about ten feet long, 
and fifteen inches broad, differing only in 
this, that the frizing-table is lined or co- 
vered with a kind of coarse woollen stuff, 
of a rough sturdy nap ; and the frizer is in- 
crustated with a kind of cement composed 
of glue, gum arabic, and a yellow sand, 
with a little aquavits;, or urine. The 
beam, or drawer, thus called, because it 
draws the stuff from between the frizer and 
the frizing-table, is a wooden roller, beset 
all over with little, fine, short points, or 
ends of wire, like those of cards used in 
carding of wool. 
The disposition and use of the machine is 
thus : the table stands immoveable, and 
bears or sustains the cloth to be frized, 
which is laid with that side uppermost 
on which the nap is to be raised : over 
the table is placed the frizer, at such a dis- 
tance from it as to give room for the stuff to 
be passed between them, so that the frizer, 
having a very slow semicircular motion, 
meeting the long hairs or naps of the cloth, 
twists and rolls them into little knobs or 
burrs, while, at the same time, the drawer, 
which is continually turning, draws away 
the stuff from under the frizer, and winds it 
over its own points. 
All that the workman has to do while the 
machine is a going, is to stretch the stuff on 
the table, as fast as the drawer takes it off ; 
and from time to time to take off the stuff 
from the points of the drawer. The design 
of having the frizing-table lined with stuff of 
a short, stiff, stubby nap, is, that it may de- 
tain the cloth between the table and the 
frizer long enough for the grain to be formed, 
that the drawer may not take it away too 
readily, which must otherwise be the case, 
as it is not held by any thing at the other 
end. 
FROG. See Rana. 
FRONDESCENTIA, in botany, a term 
expressive of the precise time of the year 
and month, in which each species of plants 
unfolds its first leaves. All plants produce 
new leaves every year ; buf all do not r«- 
