\ 
O V I 
reconciled to Oviedo. This reconciliation was of little 
avail; the old difpute was revived. The new king's La¬ 
tin was not intelligible; an interpreter was called in, who 
falfified all Oviedo faid; and, upon difcovering this, he 
and his companions began to learn the language of the 
country, which it is marvellous that they had not done 
fooner. Oviedo had better have remained ignorant of it, 
as, by making his infolence intelligible, it only ferved to 
widen the breach. “ Bifhop,” faid the king to him one 
day, “ do you know why I am circumcifed ?—it is for 
cleanlinefs.” The furly Jefuit anfwered, “ Then you 
and your cleanlinefs will go to hell.” It was not to be 
fuppofed that any fovereign, or any man, would hear 
fuch language without relenting it. Menas, however, 
feems to have borne his brutality with exemplary pati¬ 
ence ; and Abyflinia was at that time in fuch a ftate, that, 
had this miffionary been really a ftatefman, and the go¬ 
vernment of India in the hands of Albuquerque, Gon- 
dar might have been this day the capital of a civilized 
empire. Oviedo, however, once more forbade all the 
Portuguefe to ferve him, on pain of excommunication. 
His great hope feems to have been that the king would 
make him a martyr; and in this hope, one day, in one 
of their difputes, when he had, as he thought, fufficiently 
exafperated him, he threw off his cloak, and knelt down 
to receive the blow. Menas was fatisfied with giving him 
a good thralhing ; and then, turning to the Portuguefe, 
who dill continued to ferve him, he faid, “ You fee what 
a fellow my brother the king of Portugal has fent me ! 
had he no Portuguefe whom he could have fent ?” This 
queltion Ihould imply that they were afliamed of him, and 
had reprefented to the king that he was a Caftilian, not 
their countryman. 
Oviedo and the other Jefuits now fecretly abetted a re¬ 
bellion in the country ; and, though they were fuccefsful 
in their attempts to injure and harafs the exifting go¬ 
vernment, yet their flay in the country was thought fo 
fruitlefs, that orders came from Rome for them to go to 
Japan. By the death of Bareto, Oviedo had now fucceeded 
to the vain title of patriarch ; it was not, however, the 
pride of rank, nor the fear or hope of martyrdom, which 
made him remain in Abyflinia : he had no poflible means 
of getting out of it; and, fo deftitute was he of all Eu¬ 
ropean conveniences, that the letter which he contrived 
to fend to Rome in reply was written upon flips of paper 
cut from the margin of his breviary. Sertza Denghel, the 
fucceffor of Menas, did not think him worthy of perfe- 
cution, and wifely left him to linger out the remainder 
of his days in obfcurity. He died in 1577, having been 
twenty years employed in a million for which he was in 
every refpeft unqualified. His head was fome years after¬ 
wards removed to Goa as a relic. Gen. Biog. 
OUJETN. See Ougein. 
O'VIFORM, adj. Having the fliape of an egg.- —This 
notion of the mundane egg, or that the world was ovi¬ 
form, hath been the fenfe and language of all antiquity. 
Burnet. 
OVIL'IA, in ancient Rome, a place in the Campus 
Martius, at firft railed-in like a Iheep’s pen; whence its 
name. Afterwards it was mounted with marble, and 
beautified with walks and galleries ; as alfo with a tribu¬ 
nal, or feat of juftice. Within this precinft, or inclo- 
fure, the people were called to give their fuffragesfor the 
election of magiftrates. 
The afcent into the ovilia was not by flairs, but by 
pontes, a fort of bridges made for the time ; every curia, 
tribe, and century, as the aflembly was centuriate or tri¬ 
bute, See. having its proper bridge. Whence the pro¬ 
verb, de ponte dejiciendus, where a perfon is to be de¬ 
barred from giving his vote. 
OUIL'LY, a town of France, in the department of the 
Calvados : fix miles weft of Falaife, and eighteen fouth 
of Caen. 
OU'INEASKE, or Shelburne Bay, a bay on the eaft 
fide of Lake Champlain, which fets up foutherly, through 
O V I 91 
the town of Burlington in Vermont, into the northern 
part of Shelburne. 
OUINICHTAGAN', a lake of Lower Canada: 183 
miles north of Quebec. Lat. 50. o. N. Ion. 70. 56. W. 
OVIP'ARQUS, adj. [from the Lat. ovum, an egg, and 
pario, to bring forth.] Bringingforth eggs; not viviparous. 
—Birds and oviparous creatures have eggs enough at firft 
conceived in them to ferve them for many years’ laying. 
Rap. 
Oviparous Animals ftand in oppofition to thofe 
which bring forth their young alive, called viviparous 
animals, as man, quadrupeds, &c. They may be de¬ 
fined to be fuch as conceive eggs, which they afterwards 
bring forth, and from which, by the incubation of the 
parent, or fome other principle of warmth and fermenta¬ 
tion, at length arife animals ; which, after they have fpent 
the moifture or humour they were furrounded withal, 
and are grown to a fufficient bulk, firmnefs, and ftrength, 
break their Ihell, and come forth. The oviparous kind, 
befules birds, includes divers fpecies of animals; as fer- 
pents, lizards, tortoifes, crabs, lobfters, frogs, See. 
The diftindtion between oviparous and viviparous crea¬ 
tures, feems, in the infedl-world, to be much lefs fixed 
and determinate than is fuppofed. It is evident, that 
fome flies, which are naturally oviparous, if they are kept 
from the finding a proper nidus for their eggs, be it 
meat, or any thing elfe, will retain them fo long beyond 
their due time of exclufion, that they will hatch into 
worms in the body of the parent, and be afterwards de- 
pofited alive in flelh, or in the manner of the young of 
the viviparous infedls. Bartholine gives an account, in 
his Medical Obfervations, of a hen, which, inftead of 
eggs, brought forth no lefs than five living chickens; 
but fhe died of it. 
O'VIS, f. the Lamb and Sheep ; a genus of quadru¬ 
peds of the clafs mammalia, order pecora. Generic cha- 
radiers—Horns hollow, wrinkled, turned backwards and 
outwards into a circular or fpiral form ; eight lower fore¬ 
teeth, tulks none. The animals of this genus are gentle, 
harmlefs, and ufeful; they fupply food and raiment; 
they are not very adtive, but fight by butting each other 
with the head reclined; they drink little; the females 
are gravid five months, bring one or two, rarely three, 
young at a time. According to the Linnaean fyftem there 
are four fpecies 5 but Dr. Shaw includes the whole genus 
in three fpecies, placing the Jlrepficeros, or Cretan fheep, 
among the numerous varieties of the O. aries, or common 
fheep; and in this particular we are difpofed to agree 
with him. 
1. Ovis Ammon, the argali, or wild fheep: horns 
arched, femi-circular; wrinkled above, flattifli beneath ; 
dewlaps liair^ loofe. 
As the Capra segagrus, or Caucafan ibex, is fuppofed 
to be the original of the domeftic goat, fo the Ovis Am¬ 
mon, argali, or mufimon, is believed to be the chief 
primeval flock from which all the kinds of domeftic fheep 
have proceeded ; and, on that account, we have followed 
Dr. Shaw, in placing that fpecies firft, though Linnaeus 
begins with the common fheep. We fhall, moreover, dif- 
patch what little we have to fay of the other fpecies, and 
leave the O. aries, with its varieties and fub-varieties, to 
the laft. 
The argali, which in the Siberian language means 
“ wild fheep,” is called by the Ruffians kamenoi barann, 
or “ fheep of the rocks,” from its ordinary place of abode. 
According to Pallas, it is the fame with the mufimon of 
Pliny, and the ophion of the Greeks. It is found, in all 
its native wildnefs, vigour, and adtivity, inhabiting the 
vaft: chain of mountains which run through the centre of 
Alia to the Eaftern Sea, and the various branches of this 
chain, extending through Great Tartary, China, the 
north of Hindooltan, and Perfia. The argali delights to 
bafk in the fun on the bare rocks, but avoids the woods 
and fhade ; it feeds on alpine plants and fhrubs; it pre¬ 
fers a temperate climate, but is found alfo amongft the 
1 rocks 
