V & U
VAPOUR-of metals in mines not so noxious as those
of substances with which ores are usually united, such
as arsenic, cinnabar, &c.; fragrance of their smell;
warnings about them; disengaged from water, and
attenuated, ascends into the atmosphere, where con-
densed and acquiring weight as it rolls, falls down in a
shape suitable to the temperature of its elevation; most
fœtid, breathed from the jaws of the wolf, 24. &c.
Vegetables-vegetable earth; the bed of it in an in-
habited country must be always diminishing, and why;
plant with a round bulbous head, which, when dried,
becomes of amazing elasticity; grows near the extremity
of that region on mountains where continual snow reigns;
like fluids and mineral substances, produce air in a
copious manner; totally unprotected, and exposed to
every assailant; those in a dry and sunny soil are strong
and vigorous, not luxuriant; those the joint product
of heat and moisture are luxuriant and tender; different
kinds appropriated to different appetites of animals, and
why; birds distribute the seeds of vegetables where they
fly; vegetables cover the bottom of many parts of the sea;
but few noxious; that life as much promoted by human
industry as animal life is diminished; the ass gives
preference over others to the plantain; the sole food
of ruminating animals; animals feeding on vegetables
most inoffensive and timcrous; some possessed of motion;
what constitutes the difference between animal and vege-
table life difficult, if not impossible, to answer; not
possessed of one power which animals have the actual
ability or awkward attempt at self-preservation; those
called marine grow to a monstrous size, 17, &c.
Vesuvius-its eruptions, the most remarkable described
by Valetta; account of another by Bishop Berkeley,
28 to 31.
Viper-See serpents.
Unicorn-see narwhale.
Universe a sketch of the, 1.
Volcano-opinions of philosophers and ignorant men
about it; three very remarkable in Europe; Albouras
most famous in Asia; one in the island of Ternate; in
the Molucca islands, in Japau, in Java and Sumatra,
in the Cape de Verde islands, the peak of Teneriffe, and
also in America; marine ones not very frequent, and
why, 27 to 32.
Vulture-bird of prey, next in rank to the eagle, less
generous and bold; countries where found; unknown
in England; flocks of them near Grand Cairo not per-
mitted to be destroyed, as they devour all the filth and
carrion there; in company with wild dogs, tear aud
devour together without quarrelling; wonderful method
of separating the flesh from the bones, and leaving the
skin entire; smell carrion from afar; follow those that
hunt for skins alone, and so voraciously fill themselves
as merely to waddle, and to want disgorging before they
fly away; are little apprehensive of danger, and allow
themselves to be approached; an eagle falling in upon
their meals keeps them at a distance till he be
satiated; an ox returning home alone, lying down by
the way, becomes their prey, and is devoured alive;
attempt oxen grazing, destroy lambs, and feed much
upon serpents, rabbits, hares, and what game they can
overpower; also demolish whole broods of crocodiles;
lay two eggs at a time, and produce but once a year;
make nests in inaccessible cliffs and remotest places;
their flesh lean, stringy, nauseous, tasting and smelling
of carrion; the down of their wings makes a pretty kind
of fur, commonly sold in Asiatic markets, 509 to 512.
WARBLING of birds, so loud and various in modula-
tion, not easily to be accounted for, 581 to 583.
Wasps ruminating insects, or seemingly such; their
description and habits; their habitation scarcely com
pleted when the inhabitant dies; have two or three
hundred queens in a hive; their nest a most curious
object; the social wasps gather no honey themselves,
though fond of sweets; fierce battles with the bees, who
make up by conduct and numbers the deficiency
of prowess; their depredations; where found, other
flies desert the place; live but one season; cannot
endure winter; before the new-year they wither and die,
having butchered their young; in every nest one or two
females survive; impregnated the preceding season, she
begins in spring to lay eggs; and before June produces
ten thousand young, which are nursed and fed by her
alone; solitary wasp, its manners; provisions made
for the young at leaving the egg; the provisions arranged
and laid in, the old one closes the hole and dies; the
young leaving the egg are scarcely visible; how the life
of the young is spent; wasps of Europe innocent com-
pared to those of tropical climates; description of those
of the West Indies, and their habits; pains of their
sting insupportable, more terrible than of a scorpion,
the part swells, and people are so disfigured as scarce to
be known, 861 to 866.
Water-its parts infinitely small; driven through the
pores of gold; penetrating through all substances, except
glass; enters the composition of all bodies, vegetable,
animal, and fossil; birds, beasts, fishes, insects, trees,
and vegetables, with their parts, have grown from it,
and by putrefaction become water; gives all other bodies
firmness and durability; a phial, hermetically sealed,
kept fifty years, deposed no sediment, and continued
transparent; gathered after a thunder-clap, in sultry
weather, deposits a real salt; spring-water collected from
the air; of river waters, the Indus and the Thames offer
the most light and wholesome; lightness, and not tran-
sparency, the test of purity; purest waters distilled from
snow on tops of highest mountains; different kinds
adapted to different constitutions; fresh-water at sea
putrefies twice, sometimes thrice in a voyage; a month
at sea, sends up a noisome and dangerous vapour, which
takes fire from a flame; elementary water not com-
pounded; is ice kept in fusion; dilates in bulk by cold;
confirmed by experiments; very comprehensible and
elastic; made to resemble air; a drop of water converted
into steam, capable of raising twenty tons weight; keeps
its surface level and even; a single quart sufficient to
burst a hogshead, and how; water of the sea heavier
and more buoyant than fresh water, 51 to 60.
Water-hen-its description, 613 to 615.
Water-fowl-described, 615, 616.
Wax-the first fifteen days the bees make more wax
than during the rest of the year; of two kinds gathered
by common bees; that produced by black bees in tropical
climates only used for medicinal purposes, being two
soft for candles, as in Europe, 853, &c.
Weasel-a small carnivorous animal; marks common
to the kind; these differ from the cat kind in the forma-
tion and disposition of claws; differ from the dog kind
in a clothing of fur rather than hair; one of the species
is like all the rest; this the smallest of the whole kind;
its description; untameable and untractable; hides and
sleeps three parts of the day, and sallies forth for prey
in the evening; attacks animals much above its own
size; catches rats and mice better than cats, also small
birds; destroys young poultry, and sucks the eggs; so
nimbly runs up high walls, no place is secure from it;
in cultivated lands, it thins the number of hurtful ver-
min; never cries but when struck; all the kind have
glands near the anus, secreting a substance fœtid in
some, and a perfume in others; this most offensive in
summer, and insufferable when irritated; one sort in
America is by sailors called the stinkard; confined to
a cage, is ever in uneasy agitation; must have leave to
hide itself; eats only by stealth, and will not touch the
food until it begins to putrefy; the female makes an
easy bed for her young, and generally brings forth from
three to five at a time, and with closed eyes; account
of a weasel's forming her nest, and bringing forth her
young in the putrid carcase of a wolf; the white ermine
found in Great Britain is called the white weasal; its
fur among us of no value; of the weasel kind, the
martin the most pleasing; the boldest and most useful
of all is the ichneumon, 352 to 369.
Whale the largest animal known; no precise anatomy
of this fish yet given; two centuries ago, they were de-
scribed two hundred and fifty feet long; Biscayaneers
practised the whale fishery near Greenland soon after
the year 1300; seven different kinds, distinguished by
external figure or internal conformation; are gregarious
animals, make migrations from one ocean to another,
and generally resort where they have the least disturb-
ance; great Greenland whale, its description; from
sixty to seventy feet long; the head one-third of its bulk;
its hearing is acute; breathes air at the surface of the
water, and cannot remain under it like other fishes; it
blows loudly through the spout-holes, and most fiercely
when wounded; whalebone different from the bones
of the body; the fins are from five to eight feet long;
the throat is so narrow, nothing larger than a herring can
be swallowed; the tail, its only weapon of defence, is
twenty-four feet broad, and strikes hard blows; one seen
by Ray marbled, with the figures 122 distinctly marked
upon it; the blubber and other parts turn out to very
good account; the flesh palatable to some nations; the
female and male keep much together; their fidelity ex-
ceeds that of birds; do not cross breeds; she goes with
young nine months, is then fatter than at other times;
produces two breasts and teats at pleasure; suckles her
young a year, and how; is very tender of them; defends
them fiercely when pursued; instance of it; dives with
them, and comes up soon to give them breast; during
the first year called short-heads, and then yields fifty
barrels of blubber; at two years they are stunts, and
after that skull-fish; the food of this animal an insect
called medusa by Linnæus, and walfischoas by the Ice-
lunders; pursues no other fish, and is inoffensive in its
element; the whale-louse, of the shell-fish kind, sticks
to its body as to the foul bottom of a ship, gets under
its wings, and eats through the skin into the fat; the
sword-fish affrights the whale, avoids the stroke of its
tail, bounds upon its back, and cuts into it with the
toothed edges of its bill; the killer, a cetaceous fish
of great strength with powerful teeth, besets the whale
as dogs do a bull, tears it down, and then devours only its
tongue; old manner of taking the whale; improvements
hinted, 659 to 665.
Whale (spermaceti)-see cachelot.
Wheat-ear-a short-billed bird of the sparrow kind,
though foreign, 569.
Whin-chat-a slender-billed bird of the sparrow
kind, 569.
Whiskers a man without them formerly considered
as unfit for company in Spain; Nature denying, Art
supplied the deficiency; a Spanish General borrowing
money of the Venetians, pawned his whiskers, and took
care to release them; part of the religion of the Tartars
consists in the management of their whiskers, and they
waged war with the Persians as infidels, whose whiskers
had not the orthodox cut; the kings of Persia wore them
matted with gold thread, and the kings of France, of the
first races, had them knotted and buttoned with gold,
154, &c.
White-bait--shoals appear near Greenwich in July, 702.
Wild man of the woods-see ouran-outang.
Winds, irregular and regular--currents of air; artificial;
causes assigned for the variety, activity, continual change,
and uncertain duration of it; in what manner to foretel
the certainty of a wind, as the return of an eclipse; to
account for variations of wind upon laud, not at present
expected; recourse to be had to the ocean, and why;
in many parts of the world the wind pays stated visits;
in some places they blow one way by day and another
by night; in others, for one half-year they go in a direc-
tion contrary to their former course; in some places the
winds never change; the wind which never varies is the
great universal wind, blowing from the east to the west
in all extensive oceans, where the land does not break
the general current; the other winds are deviations of its
current; many theories to explain the motion of the
winds; that of Dr. Lister; theory of Cartesius; Dr.
Halley's more plausible. Trade winds blow from the
poles towards the equator; were the surface of the globe
the sea, the winds would be constant, and blow in one
direction; various circumstances break its current, and
drive it back against its general course, forcing it
upon coasts that face the west; want of a true system
of trade-winds supplied by an imperfect history of them;
north wind prevails during October, November, Decem-
ber, and January, in the Atlantic, under the temperate
zone; north winds reign during the winter in Nova
Zembla and other arctic countries; south wind prevails
during July in the Cape de Verde islands; north-west
wind blows during September at the Cape of Good
Hope; regular winds produced by various causes upon
land; ancient Greeks first observed them; in general,
wherever a strong current of water, there is a wind to
attend it; regular wind: produced by the flux and reflux
of the sea; winds called monsoons; some peculiar to
certain coasts; south wind constant upon those of Chili
and Peru, other winds particular to various coasts.
Land winds puff by intervals, and why; not so at
sea; east wind more constant than any other, and
generally most powerful; wind blowing one way and
clouds moving another forerunners of thunder; cause
of this surprising appearance remains a secret; winds
from the sea generally moister than those over tracts
of land; more boisterous in spring and autumn than at
other seasons; their force does not depend upon velo-
city alone, but also upon density; reflected from sides
of mountains and towers often more powerful than in
direct progression; raise sandy deserts in one country
to deposit them upon some other; south winds in sum-
mer so hot in Egypt as almost to stop respiration, and
produce epidemic disorders when continuing for any
length of time; deadly along the coasts of the Persian
Gulf and of India; assume a visible form, 104 to 113.
Wolga-its length; abounds with water in May and
June; at other times very shallow; the English dis-
appointed in a trade into Persia through it; receives thirty-
three lesser rivers, in its course; has seventy openings
into the Caspian Sea, 65, &c.
Wolf-wild dogs partake of the disposition of the
wolf; the wolf taken young is gentle only while a cub;
as it grows older discovers its natural appetite for rapine
and cruelty; experiments prove neither wolf nor fox of
the same nature with the dog, but each a distinct species;
a fierce, strong, cunning, carnivorous quadruped, exter-
nally and internally so nearly resembling the dog, they
seem modelled alike, yet have a perfect antipathy to
each other; description of the wolf; principal distinc-
tion from the dog is the eye, which opens slantingly
upwards in the same direction with the nose; the tail is
also long, bushy, hanging lank; the wolf lives about
twenty years; it is not much with those of his kind, yet
hunts in packs with them; quarrelling, they devour each
other; is watchful, and easily waked; supplied with
water, lives four or five days without food; carries off
a sheep without its carcase touching the ground, and
runs with it swifter than his pursuers; smells a carcase
at a great distance; leaving the wood, goes out against
the wind; particularly fond of human flesh; follow
armies, and arrive in numbers upon a field of battle;
two or three wolves keep a province for a time in con-
tinual alarm; distinguished by huntsmen into young,
old, and great wolf; manner of hunting them; young
dogs shudder at their sight; the wolf killed, no dogs
show an appetite to enjoy their victory; the flesh so
very indifferent, no creature eats it but the kind itself;
breathe a most fœtid vapour from their jaws; often die
of hunger, after running mad by furious agitations;
season for coupling lasts but fifteen days; no strong
attachment appears between male and female; seek
each other only once a year; couple in winter, several
males then follow one female, dispute cruelly, growl,
and tear each other, and sometimes kill that preferred
by the female; she flies from all with the chosen when the
rest are asleep; males pass from one female to the other;
time of pregnancy about three months and a half; couple
like the dog, and the separation hindered by the same
cause; bring forth from five to six, or as many as nine at
a litter; the cubs brought forth with eyes closed; young
wolves play with hares or birds brought by their dams,
and end by killing them; able to engender when two
years old; France, Spain, and Italy much infested with
them; England, Ireland, and Scotland happily free;
King Edgar first attempted to rid this kingdom, and in
what manner; Edward I. issued a mandate to Peter
Corbet for the destruction of them; some quite black,
some white all over; found in Asia, Africa, and America;
in the East trained up for show, taught to dance and play
tricks; one thus educated sells for four or five hundred
crowns; in Lapland the wolf never attacks a rein-deer
when haltered; wolves of North America used in hunt
ing; caught in pit-falls; a wolf, a friar, and a woman
taken in one the same night, 339 to 345.
Wolf-fish-the anarbicas, a soft-finned apodal fish, its
description, 694.
Wolf (Golden)-the Latin name for the jackal.
Woman-some continue pregnant a month beyond
the usual time; those of Africa deliver themselves, and
are well a few hours after; in barbarous countries the
laborious duties of life thrown upon the women; the
chief and only aim of an Asiatic is possession of many
women; instance in our own country of a fine woman
married to an eunuch; a principal employment of those
of Thibet is reddening the teeth with herbs, and mak-
ing their hair white; the body arrives at perfection
sooner than the men; the persons of women as com-
plete at twenty as those of men at thirty; less apt to
become bald than men; Mr. Buffon thinks they never be-
come bald; there are too many instances to the contrary;
lower eye-lids drawn downwards when with child; the
corners of the mouth also; then, likewise, high-shouldered;
circumstances under which the midwives call them all
mouth and eyes; the shoulders narrower and the neck
proportionably longer than in men; first impulse of
savage nature confirms women's slavery-the next of
half barbarous nations appropriates their beauty; that
of the perfectly polite engages their affections; the
bones, cartilages, muscles, and other parts of the body
softer than in men; a woman of sixty has a better
chance than a man of that age to live to eighty; women
longer in growing old than men; in the polar regions
as deformed as the men; women of India described;
marry and consummate at eight, nine, or ten years old,
and have children at that age; cease bearing before the
age of thirty; those of savage nations in a great mea-
sure exempt from painful labours; after a catalogue of
deformities, Linnæus puts down the slender waists of
women in Europe, by tight lacing, destroying their
health through a mistaken notion of improving their
beauty; remarkable instance of the power of imagina-
tion upon the foetus, 146 to 149.
Woodcock, or cock of the wood-of the grouse kind;
places which this bird inhabits; how distinguished from
the other birds of the poultry kind; the delicacy of its
flesh; its food and habitation; amorous desires first
felt in spring; keeps to the place where he first courts,
and continues till the trees have their leaves and the
forest is in bloom; its cry, clapping of wings, and ridi-
culous postures in this season, during which the females,
attending his call, are impregnated; sportsmen use this
time to fire at them, and take many while thus tame,
though at others it is most timorous and watchful; the
female much less than her mate, and so unlike him in
plumage, she might be mistaken for another species;
number and size of the eggs; she hatches them without
the cock, and when obliged to leave them in quest of food,
so covers them with moss or leaves it is difficult to find
them; she is then extremely tame and quiet; keeps her
nest, though attempted to be driven away; the young
being hatched, they run with agility after the mother,
though scarcely disengaged from the shell; their food
ant's eggs and wild mountain berries; older, they feed
upon the tops of heather and cones of pine-trees; are
hardy; the clutching time over, the young males forsake
the mother, and keep together till spring, when the first
genial access sets them at variance for ever; fight each
other like game-cocks, and easily fall a prey to the
fowler, 537, 538.
Woodpecker-of this bird there are many kinds and
varieties in each; general characteristics; description
of the green wookpecker or wood-spite, called the rain-
fowl in some parts; food; its tongue the instrument
for killing and procuring food; want that intestine which
anatomists call the cæcum; in what manner they make
their nests, and how delicate in the choice; number of
eggs; nests in warmer reigons of Guinea and Brazil;
little woodpecker, called by the natives of Brazil guira-
tema, 550 to 552.
Worms of different kinds infest each species of fish ;
sea- worms make the shells of fishes their food; within
the body of the caterpillar devour its entrails without
destroying its life, 882 to 884.
ZEBRA the most beautiful, but wildest animal; a
native of the southern parts of Africa; nothing exceeds
the delicate regularity of its colour; description; watch-
ful and swift; its speed a proverb among Spaniards and
Portuguese; stands better upon its legs than a horse;
in what countries found; the Portuguese pretend to
have tamed and sent four from Africa to Lisbon, to
draw the king's coach; some sent to Bazil could not be
tamed, Merolla asserts, when tamed, they are still as
estimable for swiftness as beauty; their noise resembles
the confused barking of a mastiff; in two, the author
saw the skin below the jaw upon the neck hung loose in
a kind of dewlap; they are easily fed; some in Eng-
land eat bread, meat, and tobacco; the Emperor of
Japan made a present of sixty thousand crowns' value
for one received from a governor of Batavia; Great
Mogul gave two thousand ducats for another; African
ambassadors to the court of Constantinople bring some
with them as presents for the Grand Seignior; zebra
and wild ass of a very different species, 243 to 246.
Zoophytes-name of Vegetable Nature endued with
animal life; first class of zoophytes; all the tribe con-
tinue to live in separate parts; one animal by cuttings
divided into two distinct existences, sometimes into a
thousand; second class, 880 to 882.
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