stems smooth and even, striated, angular; leaves acuminate, a little oblique at the base; peduncle longer than the petiole, and opposite to it; spike cylindrical, frequently, together with the peduncle, pendulous; petiole channeled at the base. It is the leaf of this species of pepper plant which is called betle, or betel, which serves to enclose a few slices or bits of the areca; these, together with a little chunam, or shell lime, are what the southern Asiatics universally chew to sweeten the breath and strengthen the stomach; the lower people there use it as ours do tobacco in Europe, to keep off the calls of hunger: it is there deemed the height of unpoliteness to speak to a superior without some of it in the mouth. The women of Canara on the Malabar coast, stain their teeth black with antimony, thus preserving them good to old age; the men, on the contrary, ruin theirs by the betel and chunam, or lime, which they take with it.

PIPERITIE, in botany, from the word piper, pepper, the name of the second order in Linnæus's "Fragments of a Natural Method;" consisting, as the name imports, of pepper, and a few genera which agree with it in habit, structure, and sensible qualities. These plants are mostly herbaceous and perennial. The stalks of some of them creep along rocks and trees, into which they strike root at certain distances. None of them rise above fifteen feet high, and but few exceed three or four feet. The flesh roots of many of these plants, particularly those of several species of arum, are extremely acrid when fresh. They lose this pungent quality, however, by being dried, and become of a soapy nature. The pepper plant of Senegal bears a round berry, about the size of hemp seed, which, when ripe, is of a beautiful red colour, and of a sweetish taste. It contains a seed of the shape and bigness of a grain of cabbage, but very hard, and possessing an agreeable poignancy. The berries grow in small bunches on a shrub that is about four feet high, and has thin supple branches, furnished with oval leaves, that are pointed at the ends, not very unlike those of the privet.

PIPRA, the manakin, in natural history, a genus of birds of the order Passeres. Generic character: bill short, strong, hard, nearly triangular at the base, and slightly incurvated at the tip; nostrils naked; tail short. These birds are very similar to the genus of Titmice, and are almost all peculiar to South America, There are thirty-one

species noticed by Gmelin. Latham enumerates only twenty-five. The following are most deserving of attention. P. rupicola, or the rock manakin, is as large as a pigeon, and is a very beautiful species, inhabiting Cayenne and Guiana, and building in the holes and clefts of the rocks, in the most obscure recesses. They are very timid; but are frequently tamed, so as to accompany the domestic poultry. The female, after laying her eggs for a few years, assumes in some instances the distinctive plumage of the male, and may be mistaken for him; a circumstance, however, not peculiar to this genus of birds. The black-crowned manakin is frequent in Guiana, avoiding the open plains, and haunting the skirts of woods in small flocks. These birds are found in the neighbourhood of ant's nests, from which they are seen to spring up frequently as if stung by these insects, uttering at the moment a cry somewhat similar to the cracking of a nut, PIRATE, one who maintains himself by pillage and robbing at sea. By statute 28 Henry VIII. c. 15, all felonies committed upon the sea, or any place where the Adpiral has jurisdiction, shall be tried where ever the King shall appoint by his special commission, as if the offence had been at common law, And by statute 6 George I. if any subjects or denizens of this kingdom, commits any hostility against others of the King's subjects upon the sea, under colour of any commission from any prince or other authority, he shall be deemed a pirate, and suffer accordingly.

By statute 18 George II. c. 30, persons committing hostilities, or aiding enemies at sea, may be tried as pirates. Piracies at sea are excepted out of the general pardon by 20 George II. c. 52.

PISCES, in natural history, is the fourth class in the Linnæan system, consisting of five orders, viz.

shes. Of these the most important is respiration, which is performed by means of gills, which supply the place of lungs. Air is equally necessary to the existence of fish as it is to other animals. In general, a fish first receives a quantity of water by the mouth, from which it is driven to the gills; these close, and prevent the water from returning by the mouth, at the same time that their bony covering prevents it from passing through them, until the proper quantity of air has been extracted from it. The covers then open, and give it a free passage; by which means the gills are again opened, and admit a fresh body of water. This process, in fishes, as breathing in the human subject, is carried on during sleep, and is repeated about twenty-five times in a mimute; and the necessity of it is evinced from the circumstance of fish being certainly killed in water, from which air is taken away by means of the air-pump, or excluded by very severe frost. Should the free play of the gills be even suspended, or their covers kept from moving, by a string tied round them, the fish would fall into convulsions, and die in a few minutes. It is said, likewise, that though the branchial apparatus be comprized in a small compass, its surface when fully extended would oc cupy many square feet; a fact, that may convince the most sceptical, of the numberless convolutions and ramifications in which the included water is elaborated and attenuated, in the course of giving out its air in the respiratory process.

Fishes have the organs of sense, some of them probably in a very high degree, and others imperfectly; of the latter kind are the senses of touch and of taste: but the sense of hearing has now been completely ascertained, which was long doubted, and by some physiologists denied: the organ is contained in the cavity of the head; it was discovered by Professor Camper, who remarks, that "fish perceive sound, but sound peculiar to the watery element." This organ bas been observed and described by Mr. Hunter, in the Philosophical Transactions, who has likewise ascertained that its structure varies in different species. And Dr. Shaw, in his "Introduction to the Natural History of Fishes," Vol. IV. Part I. observes, that "Fishes, particularly of the skate kind, have a bag at some distance behind the eyes, which contains a fluid, and a soft cretaceous substance, and supplies the place of the vestibule and cochlea: there is a nerve distributed uponît similar

to the portio mollis in man: they have semi circular canals, which are filled with a fluid, and communicate with the bag; they have likewise a meatus externus, which leads to the internal ear. The cod-fish, and others of the same shape, have an organ of hearing somewhat similar to the former, but instead of a soft substance contained in the bag, there is a hard cretaceous stone." From the same work we shall transcribe the observations on the sense of smelling and that of sight.

"The organ of smelling is large, and the animals have a power of contracting and dilating the entry to it as they have occasion. It seems to be mostly by their acute smell that they discover their food, for their tongue seems not to have been designed for a very nice sensation, being of a pretty firm cartilaginous substance; and common experience evinces that their sight is not of so much use to them as their smell in searching for their nourishment. If you throw a fresh worm into the water, a fish shall distinguish it at a considerable distance; and that this is not done by the eye, is plain from observing, that after the same worm has been a considerable time in the water, and lost its smell, no fishes will come near it; but if you take out the bait, and make several little incisions into it, so as to let out more of the odoriferous effluvia, it shall have the same effect as formerly. Now it is certain, that had the animals discovered this bait with their eyes, they would have come equally to it in both cases. sequence of their smell being the principal means they have of discovering their food, we may frequently observe them allowing themselves to be carried down with the stream, that they may ascend again leisurely against the current of the water: thus the odoriferons particles swimming in that medium, being applied more forcibly to their organs of smell, produce a stronger sensation.

In con

"The optic nerves in fishes are not confounded with one another in their middle progress between their origin and the orbit, but the one passes over the other without any communication; so that the nerve which comes from the left side of the brain goes distinctly to the right eye, and vice versa. Indeed it should seem not to be necessary for the optic nerves of fishes to have the same kind of connection with each other as those of man have; for their eyes are not placed in the fore-part, but in the sides of the head; and, consequently, cannot look

so conveniently at any object with both eyes at the same time. The crystalline lens in fishes is a complete sphere, and more dense than in terrestrial animals, that the rays of light coming from the water might be sufficiently refracted. As fishes are continually exposed to injuries in the uncertain element in which they reside, and as they are in perpetual danger of becoming a prey to the larger ones, it was necessary that their eyes should never be shut; and as the cornea is sufficiently washed by the element they live in, they are not provided with palpebræ ; but, as in the current itself the eye must be exposed to several injuries, there was a necessity that it should be sufficiently defended; which, in effect, it is, by a firm pellucid membrane, seeming to be a continuation of the cuticula stretched over it: the epidermis is very proper for this purpose, as being insensible, and destitute of vessels, and consequently not liable to obstructions, and thus becoming opaque. In the eye of the skate tribe there is a digitated curtain which hangs over the pupil, and which may shut out the light when the animal rests, being somewhat similar to the tunica adnata of other animals."

We now proceed to notice the motion of fishes, for the celerity of which their shape is admirably adapted: hence, vessels designed to be navigated in water are made to imitate, in some degree or other, the shape of fish; but the rapidity of a ship in sailing before the wind is not to be compared to the velocity of a fish. The largest fishes are known to overtake a ship in full sail with the greatest ease, to play round it without effort, and to surpass it at pleasure. Every part of the body seems formed for dispatch: the fins, the tail, and the motion of the whole back-bone assist in the business; and it is to that flexibility of body which mocks the efforts of art, that fishes owe the great velocity of their motions. The chief instruments in a fish's motion are its fins, air-bladder, and tail; with two pair, and three single fins, it will migrate a thousand leagues in a season, and without indicating any visible symptoms of languor or fatigue. The fins serve not only to assist the animal in progression, but in rising and sinking, in turning, and even in leaping out of the water. The pectoral fins serve to push the animal forward, and to balance the head when it is too large for the body, and prevent it from tumbling to the bottom, which it infallibly would if the fins were cut off. The ventral fins, which always lie flat

in the water, serve rather to raise or de press the body, than to assist its progressive motion. The dorsal fin acts as a poiser, in preserving the animal's equilibrium, while it aids the forward movement; and the anal fin is designed to maintain the vertical position of the body. By means of the air bladder, fishes can increase or diminish the specific gravity of their body. When they contract it, and press out the air, the bulk of the body is diminished, and the fish sinks as far as it pleases: on relaxing the opera tion, the bladder acquires its natural size, the body becomes specifically lighter, and the fish is enabled to swim near the surface. The tail, in the last place, may be regarded as the rudder, directing the motions of the fish, to which the fins are only subser

vient.

With respect to the nourishment of fishest they are mostly carnivorous, though they seize upon almost any thing that falls in their way, and not uncommonly devour their own offspring: they seem, indeed, to manifest a particular predilection for what. ever they can swallow possessed of life. They often meet with each other in fierce opposition, and the victor, without scruple, devours his antagonist. Thus are they irritated by the continual desire of satisfying their hunger; and the life of a fish, from the smallest to the greatest, is but one scene of hostility and violence. The smaller species, which stand no chance in the un equal combat, resort to those shallows where the larger are unable to approach. There they become invaders in their turn, and live on the spawn of large fishes, which they find floating on the water, till at length they are imprisoned, and leisurely devoured by the mussel, oyster, &c. which lie in ambush at the bottom. Fishes can, however, not withstanding their natural voracity, live long, apparently, without food; but they, perhaps, in vases and other ornamental vessels, feed on insects too small for the human eye to see; or, it has been thought, they may have the power of chemically decomposing water. We now proceed to the subject of reproduction.

In most, if not in all fishes, there is a difference in sex, though Bloch and others make mention of individuals, which seemed to unite the two sexes, and to be real her. maphrodites. The number of males, it has been remarked, is about double that of females; and were it not for this wise pro vision of nature, a large proportion of the extruded eggs would remain unfecundated.