tee 
AVOIRDUPOIS. 
300 
afford the best test of a proper temperature be- 
ing maintained, and also this would combine the 
sources of gratification and amusement. Should 
only a few foreign birds be admitted, separate 
apartments may be so constructed, as to com- 
municate with the aviary in the summer, and to 
be shut up and warmed with a flue in the win- 
ter. Birds are either carnivorous, granivorous, 
or insectivorous. The first class are not fitted 
for the aviary—the second always do well—the 
third require great care to keep them in health. 
I have found that the best food for constant sup- 
ply is buck wheat, hemp, rape and canary seeds, 
and a mixture of barley meal and grated liver. 
The latter is particularly necessary for the lark 
tribe and the sylvias, and also for the merulidee. 
Snails, slugs, and worms, should be frequently 
supplied also; and green food, such as ground- 
sel, chickweed, lettuce, and water-cresses; also 
the seed of plantain, dock, and thistles occasion- 
ally. The seed should be provided in boxes, so 
constructed that a little only should fall down at 
a time. There should be several boxes, as the 
stronger birds are apt to tyrannize over the 
weaker, and keep them from their food; and 
each of the boxes should have several divisions 
of wire, or wood.” 
AVOIRDUPOIS. The distinguishing deno- 
mination of British commercial weight. The 
term is probably derived from avozrs, the ancient 
name for goods or chattels, and pozds, weight. 
By act of parliament, Geo. IV. cap. 74, it is 
directed that while the troy pound or standard- 
weight shall contain 5,760 grains, the avoirdupois 
or common pound shall contain 7,000 such grains ; 
and that 10 pounds avoirdupois, or 277'274 cubic 
inches of distilled water at 62° Fahrenheit, the 
barometer being at 30 inches, shall be the con- 
tents of the new Imperial gallon. By the new 
act which came into operation on the Ist of 
| January, 1835, with the exception of gold, silver, 
platina, precious stones, and drugs, when sold by 
retail, all articles are to be sold by avoirdupois 
weight. The avoirdupois pound is divided into 
16 ounces of 16 drams each: the dram contain- 
ing 273% grains. Its multiples are quarters of 
28 pounds each; hundred-weights of 4 quarters 
each; and tons of 20 hundred-weights each. 
AWLWORT,—botanically Subularia. A curi- 
ous annual aquatic plant, of the mountain lakes 
of Great Britain. It belongs to the cruciferous 
tribe, and takes both its popular and its botani- 
cal names from the awl-shaped form of its leaves. 
It grows about 3 inches high, and flowers in July. 
The only known species is Subularia aquatica. 
AWNS. ‘The beards or long bristles which 
project from the chaffs or exterior of the seeds of 
| barley, spring wheat, and some other grasses. In 
some parts of England they are called ails. 
AXE. A well-known tool, in almost constant 
requisition by the forester, the woodsman, the 
wheelwright, the house-carpenter, and all other 
| operators upon timber. An axe is an indispen- 
fact, is at the present time a fashionable plant ; 
AZALEA. 
sable tool on a farm for many miscellaneous pur- 
poses, and ought to occupy a very accessible 
place in the tool-house of the farmery.—A sug- 
gestion was made, about 12 years ago, by a gen- 
tleman in Dublin, that a very facile kind of bat- 
tering-axe might be advantageously employed 
for felling timber trees. The general mounting 
and mode of working are a miniature of those of 
the ancient battering-ram. The blade is made 
like a large socket, or like the Irish ‘ feck’ spade, 
and spiked to the wood ; transverse bars are in- 
serted in the shaft, to the number of two, three, 
or four, according to the number of workmen to 
be employed ; the axis of the battering-axe above 
is long enough to allow the side-frames to be 
placed nearer or more remote, according to the 
size of the tree; and a diagonal stay-bar is 
dropped upon, and prevents all from falling side- 
ways. A totally different kind of implement for 
the same purpose will be noticed under the 
word Frniine-Saw. 
AXIL, or Axitua. The angle which the leaf- 
stalk of a plant forms with the part of the stem 
or branch above it. 
AXLE. The bar which connects the two wheels 
of a two-wheeled or a four-wheeled vehicle, and 
on which the body of the vehicle is supported. 
See article Carr. 
AXONOPUS. A small genus of exotic annual 
grasses, of the millet tribe. Two uninteresting 
and very tender species, the digitate and the 
golden, were introduced to Great Britain from 
the West Indies in 1820 and 1821; and a curious 
hardy species, the cimexian, growing one foot 
high, and flowering in July and September, was 
introduced from India in 1788. 
AZADIRACHTA. See Brap-Tree. 
AZA‘LEA. A genus of very beautiful flower- 
ing shrubs, of the Rhodora tribe. The species 
are not very numerous; but the varieties have, 
of late years, been so exceedingly multiplied and 
rendered so excessively intricate, as to be almost 
bewildering. No fancy ornamental shrub, not 
excepting even the rhododendron, the fuschia, 
and the camellia, has been more profusely kalei- 
“doscoped by the recent and powerful appliances 
of scientific culture. In Miller’s time, the azalea 
figured only as two bald species, under the names 
of white and red Virginian cistus, or white and 
red American upright honeysuckle ; but in the 
present day, it figures in about one hundred per- 
manent forms, which have been recognised by 
systematic botany, and in nobody knows how 
many additional forms of more fugitive charac- 
ter, or within comparatively narrow topical 
limits. Let an amateur even master a know- 
ledge of the well-defined hybrids which are at 
present in vogue in the public nurseries or in the 
most recherche gardens, and he knows not but a 
dozen new hybrids of as brilliant a character as 
any of their predecessors may challenge his at- 
tention the very next season. The azalea, in 
| 
