| BULLEN. 
cipal varieties of it are the white, the black, and 
the red. 
BULL-BAITING. See Barrine or ANIMALS. 
BULL-DOG. See Dose. 
BULLEN. Hemp-stalks freed from the bark. 
BULLFINCH,—scientifically Pyrrhula. A ge- 
nus of singing-birds, of the fringillide family. 
The common species, Pyrrhula vulgaris, is sta- 
tionary in most parts of Great Britain, and in 
many of the northern, western, and central parts 
of continental Europe, but occurs only as a bird 
of passage in the countries of southern Europe. 
It abounds in the mountain forests of Germany ; 
it prefers the gardens, orchards, groves, hedges, 
‘| and small plantations of Britain to moorlands, 
commons, uplands, or other waste and uninha- 
bited tracts; and, though an universal and de- 
served favourite for both its beauty and its song, 
it works much havoc among some of our choicest 
wild plants, and conducts a mischievous preda- 
tory warfare against the orchardist and the gar- 
dener. It feeds, in winter, on seeds, berries, and 
hips; and, in spring, on the flower-buds of goose- 
berries, cherries, plums, apples, and medlars, 
sometimes making such unsparing devastation as 
to destroy all possibility of a crop. The male 
bird is velvet black, with a tinge of purple, in 
the head, wings, and tail ; fine bluish grey in the 
back of the neck and of the body ; white,.in the 
rump ; roseate, in the cheeks, throat, chest, and 
sides; and pinkish-white, in the margins of the 
greater wing-coverts. The female is much duller 
in the general hues of her plumage, and has only 
a faint tinge of the roseate colour in the chest. 
The nest of the bullfinch is usually constructed 
among low thick bushes or underwood, or on the 
flat foliage of a spruce or a silver fir; and con- 
sists of a basis of birch twigs or other timber- 
spray, and a shallow basket of flexible radical 
fibres. The eggs are four or five in number, pale 
blue, spotted and streaked with pale orange 
brown. The bullfinch has naturally a soft and 
plaintive call-note, inaudible at a little distance, 
and not melodious enough to be entitled song ; 
but he is a brilliant imitator, and possesses a 
powerful memory ; and he can, with comparative 
ease, be accurately taught either the natural 
notes of some of our finest singing birds, or some 
of the most melodious of our artificial airs. He 
is easily tamed also, and may, in a few days, be 
made a familiar pet of the household nursery. 
BULLIMONG. A mixed crop of oats, pease, 
and vetches. Old Tusser, in his ‘Five Hundred 
Points of Good Husbandry,’ says, 
‘* Where water all winter annoyeth too much, 
Bestow not thy wheat upon land that is such; 
But rather sow oats or else bullimong there, 
Grey peasal, or runcivals, fetches, or tare.” 
A recorded settlement of accounts between the 
Rev. John Meadows and one of his tenants in 
1661, says, “Shorter’s hay and corne this yeare 
was all paid in kinde. All that he ought me be- 
I, 
_knapweed genus. 
BUMELIA. , 577 
fore was six pounds, of which I have received 
three combe, two bushels, and one pecke of bulli- 
mong, and all the hay that now lies in the old 
barne.” 
BULLING. The pairing of the cow with the 
bull. See the article Brenpine. 
BULLOCK. See Butt, Ox, and Carrrez. 
BULLRUSH,—botanically Scirpus Lacustris. 
A perennial, aquatic, cyperaceous plant, of the 
club-rush genus. It grows in streams, clear 
ditches, ponds, and borders of lakes, in many 
parts of Great Britain, usually attains a height 
of about six feet, and produces its apetalous 
flowers in July and August. It is strictly simi- 
lar, in both botanical character and general ap- 
pearance, to the common club-rushes of peaty 
heaths and mountainous heaths; except that it 
is SO gigantic as to measure feet for their inches. 
It is used, in manufactories, for making mats, 
bottoms of rush-bottomed chairs, and other sim- 
ilar articles; and it can be turned to excellent 
account for various purposes on a farm. The 
name bullrush is sometimes applied also to the 
useful British species of the typha genus. See 
the article Cat’s-Tatt. 
BULL’S-FOOT. See Cortsroor. 
BULLWEED,—botanically Centaurea Nigra. 
An indigenous perennial-rooted weed, of the 
It abounds in many of our 
pastures ; 1t is common on the sides of our roads; 
and it too frequently infests our corn-fields and 
disgraces our husbandry. Its stems are round, 
streaked, hoary, and usually about 12 or 18 inch- 
es in height; its root-leaves are oblong and en- 
tire ; its stem-leaves are cut or divided; its 
flowers have a purplish colour, resemble the blue 
bottle or sweet-sultan in shape, and appear from 
May till August; and its seeds are small, oblong, 
reddish, and partly hairy. This annoying plant 
has many popular names,—among others, cock- 
heads, black knapweed, and black matfellow. 
BUMELIA. A genus of shrubs and trees, of 
the sapota tribe. The serrated species, Bumelia 
serraia, is a hardy deciduous fruit shrub, intro- 
duced from Missouri in 1812, usually attaining a 
height of about twelve feet, and producing an 
edible oleaginous fruit of the same family as the 
medlar. The tough species, Bumelia tenaxz, for- 
merly Stderoxylon tenax, is a hardy deciduous 
timber-tree, of about 25 feet in height, intro- 
duced about eighty years ago from Carniola— 
The reclinate, the woolly-leaved, the oblong- 
leaved, and the boxthorn-like species, are hardy, 
North American, deciduous, ornamental shrubs, 
of from three to about twelve feet in height, all 
producing white flowers in the latter part of sum- 
mer or early part of autumn.—A number of ten- 
der species have been introduced to Britain, prin- 
cipally from the West Indies; and two of these, 
Bumelia nigra and Bumelia salicifolia, are held in 
-esteem as timber-trees in their native country. 
Upwards of a dozen other species are known to 
botanists. 
20 
