of the umbrella. There the radial canals are joined by a ringcanal (c.c.) which runs round the margin of the umbrella. From the ring-canal are given off tentacle-canals which run down the axis of each tentacle; in many cases, however, the cavity of the tentacle is obliterated and instead of a canal the tentacle contains a solid core of endoderm. Oesophagus, stomach, radial canals, ring-canal and tentacle-canals, constitute together the gastrovascular system and are lined throughout by endoderm, which forms also a flat sheet of cells connecting the radial canals and ring canal together like a web; this is the so-called endoderm-lamella (e.l.), a most important feature of medusan morphology, the nature of which will be apparent when the development is described. As a general rule the mouth is the only aperture of the gastrovascular system; in a few cases, however, excretory pores are found on the ring-canal, but there is never any anal opening.

The sense-organs of medusae are of two classes: (1) pigment spots, sensitive to light, termed ocelli, which may become elaborated into eye-like structures with lens, retina and vitreous body; (2) organs of the sense of balance or orientation, commonly termed olocysts or statocysts. The sense-organs are always situated at the margin of the unbrella and may be distinguished from the morphological point of view into two categories, according as they are, or are not, derived from modifications of tentacles; in the former case they are termed tentaculocysts. (For fuller information upon the sense-organs see HYDROMEDUSAE.)

Medusae are nearly always of separate sexes, and instances of hermaphroditism are rare. The gonads or generative organs may be produced either in the ectoderm or the endoderm. When the gonads are endodermal, they are formed on the floor of the stomach; when ectodermal (G, see fig. 1), they are formed on the subumbral surface, either on the manubrium or under the stomach or under the radial canals, or in more than one of these regions. Medusae often have the power of budding, and the buds are formed either on the manubrium, or at the margin of the umbrella, or on an outgrowth or "stolon " produced from the exumbral surface.

The internal anatomy of the medusa is as variable as its external features. The mouth may lead directly into the stomach, without any oesophagus. The stomach may be situated in the disk, or may be drawn out into the base of the manubrium, so that the disk is occupied only by the radial canals. On the other hand the stomach may have lobes extending to the ring-canal, so that radial canals may be very short or absent. The radial canals may be four, rarely six, or a multiple of these numbers, and may be very numerous. They may be simple or branched. (For other anatomical variations see HYDROMEDUSAE and SCYPIOMEDUSAE.) In development the medusa can be derived easily by a process of differential growth, combined with concrescence of cell-layers, from the actinula-larva. (For figures see HYDROZOA.) The actinula is polyp-like, with a sack-like or rounded body; a crown of tentacles surrounds a wide peristome, in the centre of which is the mouth, usually raised on a conical process termed the hypostome. To produce a medusa the actinula grows greatly along a plane at right angles to the vertical axis of the body, whereby the aboral surface of the actinula becomes the exumbrella, and the peristome becomes

the subumbrella. The crown of tentacles thus comes to form a fringe to the margin of the body, and the hypostome becomes the manubrium. As a result of this change of form the gastric cavity or coelenteron becomes of compressed lenticular form, and the endoderm lining it can be distinguished as an upper or exumbral layer and a lower or subumbral layer. The next event is a great growth in thickness of the gelatinous mesogloea, especially on the exumbral side; as a result the flattened coelenteron is still further compressed so that in certain spots its cavity is obliterated, and its exumbral and subumbral layers of endoderm come into contact and undergo concrescence. As a rule four such areas of concrescence or cathammata (E. Haeckel) are formed. The cathammal areas may remain very small, mere wedge-shaped partitions dividing up the coelenteron into a four-lobed stomach, the lobes of which communicate at the periphery of the body by a spacious ring-canal. More usually cach cathamma is a wide triangular area, reducing the peripheral portion of the coelenteron to the four narrow radial canals and the ring-canal above described. The two apposed Layers of endoderm in the cathammal area undergo complete fusion to form a single layer of epithelium, the endoderm-lamella of the adult medusa.

Medusac, when they reproduce themselves by budding, always produce medusae, but when they reproduce by the sexual method the embryos produced from the egg grow into medusae in some cases, in other cases into polyps which bud medusae in their turn. In this way complicated cycles of alternating generations arise, which are described fully in HYDROMEDUSAE and SCYPHOMEDUSAE. Medusae are exclusively aquatic animals and for the most part marine, but at least two fresh-water species are known. Limnocodium sowerbyi was first discovered swimming in the tank in which the water-lily, Victoria regia, is cultivated in Kew Gardens, and 1 C. L. Boulenger (Proc. Zool. Soc. of London, 1907, p. 516) recorded the discovery of a third species by himself and W. A. Cunnington, in the brackish water of lake Birket el Kerun in the Egyptian Fayum.

has since been found sporadically in a similar situation in other botanical gardens, its most recent appearance being at Lille. These jelly-fishes are probably budded from a minute polyp-stock introduced with the roots of the lily. Another fresh-water form is Limnocnida tanganyicae, discovered first in lake Tanganyika, and now known to occur also in the Victoria Nyanza and in the Niger. A medusa with a remarkable habit of life is Mnestra parasites, which is parasitic on the pelagic mollusc Phyllirrhoe, attaching itself to the host by its subumbral surface; its tentacles, no longer required for obtaining food, have become rudimentary. A parasitic mode of life is also seen in medusae of the genus Cunina during the larval condition, but the habit is abandoned, in this case, when the medusae become adult.

For figures of medusae see (1) E. Haeckel, "Das System der Medusen," Denkschriften med-natwiss. Ges. Jena (1879, 2 vols.); (2) Id., " Deep-Sea Medusae," Challenger Reports, Zoology, IV. pt. ii. (1882); (3) O. Maas," Die craspedoten Medusen," Ergebn. Plankton-Expedition, II. (1893); (4) id., "Die Medusen," Mem. Mus. Comp. Zool. Harvard, XXIII. (1897); (5) G. J. Allman, “A Monograph of the Gymnoblastic or Tubularian Hydroids," Ray. Soc. (1871-1872). (E. A. M.)

MEDWAY, a river in the south-east of England. It rises in the Forest Ridges, S.W. of East Grinstead in Sussex, and, increased by many feeders from these picturesque hills, has an casterly course to the county boundary, which it forms, turning northward for a short distance. Entering Kent near Ashurst, its course becomes north-easterly, and this direction is generally maintained to the mouth. The river passes Tonbridge, receiving the Eden from the west, and later the Teise and Beult from the south and east, all these streams watering the rich Weald (q.v.) to the south of the North Downs. These hills are breached by the Medway in a beautiful valley, in which lies Maidstone, generally much narrower than the upper valley. The characteristic structure of this part of the valley is considered under the heading Downs. Below Maidstone the valley forms a perfect basin, the hills descending upon it closely above Rochester.. Below this city the river enters a broad, winding estuary, passing Chatham, and at Sheerness joining that of the Thames, so that the Medway may be considered a tributary, and its drainage area of 680 sq. m. reckoned as part of that of the greater river. The length of the Medway is about 60 m., excluding its many lesser windings. The estuary is navigable for sea-going vessels drawing 24 ft. up to Rochester Bridge. A considerable traffic is carried on by small vessels up to Maidstone, and by barges up to Tonbridge, the total length of the navigation being 43 m. The marshy lowlands along the course of the river have yielded extensive remains of Roman pottery, a plain ware of dark slate-colour.

MEEANEE, or MIANI, a village in Sind, India, on the Indus 6 m. N. of Hyderabad. Pop. (1901), 962. It is famous as the scene of the battle in which Sir Charles Napier, with only 2800 men, broke the power of the mirs of Sind on the 17th of February 1843. The result of this victory was the conquest and annexation of Sind.

MEEK, FIELDING BRADFORD (1817-1876), American geologist and palaeontologist, the son of a lawyer, was born at Madison, Indiana, on the 10th of December 1817. In early life he was in business as a merchant, but his leisure hours were devoted to collecting fossils and studying the rocks of the neighbourhood of Madison. Being unsuccessful in business he turned his whole attention to science, and in 1848 he gained employment on the U.S. Geological Survey in Iowa, and subsequently in Wisconsin and Minnesota. In 1852 he became assistant to Professor James Hall at Albany, and worked at palaeontology with him until 1858. Meanwhile in 1853 he accompanied Dr F. V. Hayden in an exploration of the "Bad Lands" of Dakota, and brought back valuable collections of fossils. In 1858 he went to Washington, where he devoted his time to the palaeontological work of the United States geological and geographical surveys, his work bearing "the stamp of the most faithful and conscientious research," and raising him to the highest rank as a palacontologist. Besides many separate contributions to science, he prepared with W. M. Gabb (1839-1878), two volumes on the palaeontology of California (1864-1869); and also a Report on the Invertebrate Cretaceous and Tertiary Fossils of the Upper Missouri Country (1876). He died at Washington, on the 22nd of December 1876.

Of his second style typical examples are to be seen in "The Coquette" of the Brunswick Gallery, in the "Woman Reading" in the Van der Hoop collection now at the Rijksmuseum at Amsterdam, in the " Lady at a Casement" belonging to Lord Powerscourt (exhibited at the Royal Academy, 1878) and in the" Music Master and Pupil " belonging to the King (exhibited at the Royal Academy, 1876).

For more than two centuries Van der Meer was almost completely forgotten, and his pictures were sold under the names and forged signatures of the more popular De Hooch, Metsu, Ter Borch, and even of Rembrandt. The attention of the artworld was first recalled to this most original painter by Thoré, an exiled Frenchman, who described his then known works in Musées de la Hollande (1858-1860), published under the assumed name of W. Bürger. The result of his researches, continued in his Galerie Suermondt and Galerie d'Arenberg, was afterwards given by him in a charming, though incomplete, monograph (Gazette des beaux-arts, 1866, pp. 297, 458, 542). The task was prosecuted with success by Havard (Les Artistes hollandais), and by Obreen (Nederlandsche Kunstgeschiedenis, Dl. iv.), and we are now in a position to refer to Van der Meer's works. His pictures are rarely dated, but one of the most important, in the Dresden Gallery, bears the date 1656, and thus gives us a key to his styles. With the exception of the "Christ with Martha and Mary" in the Coats collection at Glasgow, it is perhaps the only one, hitherto recognized, that has figures of life size, though his authorship is claimed for several others. The Dresden picture of a "Woman and Soldier," with other two figures, is painted with remarkable power and boldness, with great command over the resources of colour, and with wonderful expression of life. For strength and colour it more than holds its own beside the neighbouring Rembrandts. To this early period of his career belong, from internal evidence, the "Reading Girl" of the same gallery, the luminous and masterly " View of Delft " in the museum of the Hague, the "Milk-Woman" and the small street view, both identified with the Six collection at Amsterdam, the former now in the Rijksmuseum; the magnificent "The Letter" also at Amsterdam, “Diana and the Nymphs" (formerly ascribed to Vermeer of Utrecht) at the Hague Gallery, and others. In all these we find the same brilliant style and vigorous work, a solid impasto, and a crisp, sparkling touch. His first manner seems to have been influenced by the pleiad of painters circling round Rembrandt, a school which lost favour in Holland in the last quarter of the century. During the final ten or twelve years of his life Van der Meer adopted a second manner. We now find his painting smooth and thin, and his colours paler and softer. Instead of masculine vigour we have refined delicacy and subtlety, but in both styles beauty of tone and perfect harmony are conspicuous. Through all his work This undeserved neglect seems to have fallen on him at an early period, for Houbraken (Groote Schouburgh, 1718), writing little more than forty years after his death, does not even mention him. The only definite information we have from a contemporary is given by Bleyswijck (Beschrijving der Stad Delft, 1687), who tells us that he was born in 1632, and that he worked with Carel Fabritius, an able disciple of Rembrandt, who lost his life by an explosion of a powder magazine in Delft in 1654. It is to the patient researches of W. Bürger (Th. Thoré), Havard, Obreen, Soutendam, and others, that we owe our knowledge of the main facts of his life, discovered in the archives of his native town.

Van der Meer's authentic pictures in public and private collections amount to about thirty. There is but one in the Louvre, the Lace Maker "; Dresden has the two aforementioned, while Berlin has three, all acquired in the Suermondt collection, and the Czernin Gallery of Vienna is fortunate in possessing a fine picture, believed to represent the artist in his studio. In the Arenberg Gallery at Brussels there is a remarkable head of a girl, half the size of life, which seems to be intermediate between his two styles. Several of his paintings are in private foreign collections. In all his work there is a singular completeness and charm. His tone is usually silvery with pearly shadows, and the lighting of his interiors is equal and natural. In all cases his figures seem to move in light and air, and in this respect he resembles greatly his fellow-worker De Hooch. It is curious to read that, at one of the auctions in Amsterdam about the middle of the 18th century, a De Hooch is praised as being "nearly equal to the famous Van der Meer of Delft."

See also Havard, Van der Meer (Paris, 1888); Vanzype, Vermeer de Delft (Brussels, 1908), and Hofstede de Groot, Jan Vermeer von Delft (Leipzig, 1909).

Zwickau and 37 S. of Leipzig by rail. Pop. (1905), 26,005. It conMEERANE, a town in the kingdom of Saxony, 9 m. N. of tains a fine medieval church (Evangelical). It is one of the most important industrial centres of Germany for the manufacture of woollen and mixed cloths, and in these products has a large export trade, especially to America and the Far East. There are also extensive dyeworks, tanneries and machine factories. See Leopold, Chronik und Beschreibung der Fabrik- und Handelstadt Mecrane (1863).

MEERSCHAUM, a German word designating a soft white mineral sometimes found floating on the Black Sea, and rather suggestive of sea-foam (Meerschaum), whence also the French name for the same substance, écume de mer. It was termed by E. F. Glocker sepiolite, in allusion to its remote resemblance to the "bone" of the sepia or cuttle-fish. Meerschaum is an opaque mineral of white, grey or cream colour, breaking with a conchoidal or fine carthy fracture, and occasionally though rarely, fibrous in texture. It can be readily scratched with the nail, its hardness being about 2. The specific gravity varies from 0.988 to 1.279, but the porosity of the mineral may lead to error. Meerschaum is a hydrous magnesium silicate, with the formula H,Mg:Si3O10, or MgSiO, 2H2O.

Most of the meerschaum of commerce is obtained from Asia Minor, chiefly from the plain of Eski-Shehr, on the Haidar Pasha-Angora railway, where it occurs in irregular nodular masses, in alluvial deposits, which are extensively worked for its extraction. It is said that in this district there are 4000 shafts leading to horizontal galleries for extraction of the meerschaum. The principal workings are at Sepetdji-Odjaghi and Kemikdji-Odjaghi, about 20 m. S.E. of Eski-Shehr. The mineral is associated with magnesite (magnesium carbonate), the primitive source of both minerals being a serpentine. When first extracted the meerschaum is soft, but it hardens on exposure to solar heat or when dried in a warm room. Meerschaum is found also, though less abundantly, in Greece, as at Thebes, and in the islands of Euboea and Samos; it occurs also in serpentine at Hrubschitz near Kromau in Moravia. It is found to a limited extent at certain localities in France and Spain, and is known in Morocco. In the United States it occurs in serpentine in Pennsylvania (as at Nottingham, Chester county) and in South Carolina and Utah.

Meerschaum has occasionally been used as a substitute for soap and fuller's earth, and it is said also as a building material; but its chief use is for tobacco-pipes and cigar-holders. The

The soft, white, earthy mineral from Långbanshyttan, in Vermland, Sweden, known as aphrodite (appós, foam), is closely related to meerschaum. It may be noted that meerschaum has sometimes been called magnesite (q.v.).

MEERUT, a city, district and division of British India, in the United Provinces. The city is half-way between the Ganges and the Jumna, and has two stations on the NorthWestern railway, 37 m. N.E. from Delhi. Pop. (1901), 118,129. The city proper lies south of the cantonments, and although dating back to the days of the Buddhist emperor Asoka (c. 250 B.C.) Meerut owes its modern importance to its selection by the British government as the site of a great military station. In 1805 it is mentioned as "a ruined, depopulated town." The cantonment was established in 1806, and the population rose to 29,014 in 1847, and 82,035 in 1853. The town is an important centre of the cotton-trade. It is the headquarters of the 7th division of the northern army, with accommodation for horse and field artillery, British and native cavalry and infantry. It was here that the first outbreak of the Mutiny of 1857 took place. (See INDIAN MUTINY.)

The DISTRICT OF MEERUT forms part of the upper Doab, or tract between the Ganges and the Jumna, extending from river to river. Area, 2354 sq. m. Though well wooded in places and abundantly supplied with mango groves, it has but few patches of jungle or waste land. Sandy ridges run along the low watersheds which separate the minor channels, but with this exception the whole district is one continuous expanse of careful and prosperous tillage. Its fertility is largely due to the system of irrigation canals. The Eastern Jumna canal runs through the whole length of the district, and supplies the rich tract between the Jumna and the Hindan with a network of distributary streams. The main branch of the Ganges canal passes across the centre of the plateau in a sweeping curve and waters the midland tract. The Anupshahr branch supplies irrigation to the Ganges slope, and the Agra canal passes through the southern corner of Loni pargana from the Hindan to the Jumna. Besides these natural and artificial channels, the country is everywhere cut up by small water-courses. The Burh Ganga, or ancient bed of the Ganges, lies at some distance from the modern stream; and on its bank stood the abandoned city of Hastinapur, the legendary capital of the Pandavas at the period of the Mahabharata, said to have been deserted many centuries before the Christian era, owing to the encroachments of the river.

The comparatively high latitude and elevated position of Meerut make it one of the healthiest districts in the plains of India. The average temperature varies from 57° F. in January to 87° in June. The rainfall is small, less than 30 in. annually. The only endemic disease in the district is malarial fever; but small-pox and cholera occasionally visit it as epidemics. The population in 1901 was 1,540,175, showing an increase of 10-6% in the decade. The principal crops are wheat, pulse, millet, sugar-cane, cotton and indigo, but this last crop has declined of late years almost to extinction. The district is traversed by the North-Western railway, and also contains Ghaziabad, the terminus of the East Indian system, whence a branch runs to Delhi, while a branch of the Oudh & Rohilkhand railway from Moradabad to Ghaziabad was opened in

1900.

The authentic history of the district begins with the Moslem invasions. The first undoubted Mahommedan invasion was that of Kutbeddin in 1191, when Meerut town was taken and all the Hindu temples turned into mosques. In 1398 Timur captured the fort of Loni after a desperate resistance, and put all his Hindu

his memorable sack of that city returned to Meerut, captured the town, razed all the fortifications and houses of the Hindus, and put the male inhabitants to the sword. The establishment of the great Mogul dynasty in the 16th century, under Baber and his successors, gave Meerut a period of internal tranquillity and royal favour. After the death of Aurangzeb, however, it was exposed to alternate Sikh and Mahratta invasions. From 1707 till 1775 the country was the scene of perpetual strife, and was only rescued from anarchy by the exertions of the military adventurer Walter Reinhardt, afterwards the husband of the celebrated Begum Samru, who established himself at Sardhana in the north, and ruled a large estate. The southern tract, however, remained in its anarchic condition under Mahrattă exactions until the fall of Delhi in 1803, when the whole of the country between the Jumna and the Ganges was ceded by Sindhia to the British. It was formed into a separate district in 1818. In the British period it has become memorable for its connexion with the Mutiny of 1857.

The DIVISION OF MEERUT Comprises the northern portion of the Doab. It consists of the six districts of Dehra Dun, Saharanpur, Muzaffarnagar, Meerut, Bulandshahr and Aligarh. Area, 11,302 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 5,979,711, showing an increase of 12.3% in the decade. See Meerut District Gazetteer (Allahabad, 1904).

MEETING (from "to meet," to come together, assemble, O. Eng. metan; cf. Du. moeten, Swed. möla, Goth. gamoljan, &c., derivatives of the Teut. word for a meeting, seen in O. Eng. mōt, moot, an assembly of the people; cf. witanagemot), a gathering together of persons for the purpose of discussion or for the transaction of business. Public meetings may be either those of statutory bodies or assemblies of persons called together for social, political or other purposes. In the case of statutory bodies, by-laws usually fix the quorum necessary to constitute a legal meeting. That of limited companies may be either by reference to the capital held, or by a fixed quorum or one in proportion to the number of shareholders. It has been held that in the case of a company it takes at least two persons to constitute a meeting (Sharp v. Daws, 1886, 2 Q.B.D. 26). In the case of public meetings for social, political or other purposes no quorum is necessary. They may be held, if they are for a lawful purpose, in any place, on any day and at any hour, provided they satisfy certain statutory provisions or by-laws made under the authority of a statute for the safety of persons attending such meetings. If, however, a meeting is held in the street and it causes an obstruction those convening the meeting may be proceeded against for obstructing the highway. The control of a meeting and the subjects to be discussed are entirely within the discretion of those convening it, and whether the meeting is open to the public without payment, or subject to a charge or to membership of a specified body or society, those present are there merely by virtue of a licence of the conveners, which licence may be revoked at any time. The person whose licence is revoked may be requested to withdraw from the meeting, and on his refusal may be ejected with such force as is necessary. If he employs violence to those removing him he commits a breach of the peace for which he may be given into custody. An important English act has dealt for the first time with the disturbance of a public meeting. The Public Meeting Act 1908 enacted that any person who at a lawful public meeting acts in a disorderly manner for the purpose of preventing the transaction of the business for which the meeting was called together shall be guilty of an offence, and if the offence is committed at a political meeting held in any parliamentary constituency between the issue and return of a writ, the offence is made an illegal practice within the meaning of the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act 1883. Any person who incites another to commit the offence is equally guilty. A public meeting is usually controlled by a chairman, who may be appointed by the conveners or elected by the meeting itself. On the chairman falls the duty of preserving order, of calling on persons to speak, deciding points of order, of putting questions to the meeting

was carried across the river at either end or along the parallel | embankments so as to make two separate enclosures. There must have been, in all probability, a bridge to connect the two halves of the city, but the foundations seen by Leake and others, and commonly supposed to belong to such a bridge, proved to be only the substructures of the precinct of Zeus Soter. The buildings north of the river were municipal and were grouped round the square agora. One, of which the complete plan has been recovered, is the portico of Philip, a splendid building, which bounded the agora on the north; it was 300 ft. long, with three rows of columns running its whole length, three in the outer line to each one in the two inner lines; it had a slightly projecting wing at either end. At the south-west of the agora was found the precinct of Zeus Soter: it consists of a square court surrounded by a double colonnade, and faced on the west side by a small temple; on the east side was an entrance or propylaeum approached by a ramp. In the midst of the court was a substructure which has been variously interpreted as an altar or as the base of the great group of Zeus and Megalopolis, which is recorded to have stood here. North of this was the Stoa Myropolis, forming the east boundary of the agora, and, between this and the Stoa of Philip, the Archeia or municipal offices. These buildings were of various dates, but seem all to fit into an harmonious plan. The buildings on the south and west of the agora have been almost entirely destroyed by the Helisson and a tributary brook. On the south bank of the river were the chief federal buildings, the theatre (noted by Pausanias as the largest in Greece), and the Thersilion or parliament hall of the ten thousand Arcadians. These two buildings form part of a common design, the great portico of the Thersilion facing the orchestra of the theatre. As a consequence of this arrangement, the plan of the theatre is abnormal. The auditorium has as its lowest row of seats a set of thrones or ornamental benches, which, as well as the gutter in front, were dedicated by a certain Antiochus; the orchestra is about 100 ft. in diameter; and in place of the western parados is a closed room called the Scanotheca. The chief peculiarity, however, lies in the great portico already mentioned, which has its base about 4 ft. 6 in. above the level of the orchestra. It was much too lofty to serve as a proscenium; yet, if a proscenium of the ordinary Greek type were erected in front, it would hide the lower part of the columns. Such a proscenium was actually erected in later times; and beneath it were the foundations for an earlier wooden proscenium, which was probably erected only when required. In later times steps were added, leading from the base of the portico to the level of the orchestra. The theatre was probably used, like the theatre at Athens, for political assemblies; but the adjoining Thersilion provided covered accommodation for the Arcadian ten thousand in wet weather. It is a building unique in plan, sloping up from the centre towards all sides like a theatre. The roof was supported by columns that were placed in lines radiating from the centre, so as to obscure as little as possible the view of an orator in this position from all parts of the building; there were two entrances in each side.

See Excavations at Megalopolis (E. A. Gardner, W. Loring, G. C. Richards, W. J. Woodhouse; Architecture, by R. W. Schultz); Supplementary Paper issued by the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies, 1892; Journal of Hellenic Studies, xiii. 328, A. G. Bather; p. 319. E. F. Benson ("Thersilion "); 1898, p. 15, 1. B. Bury ("Double City"); W. Dörpfeld ("Das griechische Theater"); O. Puchstein, Griechische Bühne " (Theatre). (E. GR.) MEGANUCLEUS (also called MACRONUCLEUS), in Infusoria (q..)., the large nucleus which undergoes direct (amitotic) division in fission, and is lost during conjugation, to be replaced by a nucleus, the result of the karyogamy of the

micronuclei.

MEGAPODE (Gr. μéyas, great and nous, foot), the name given generally to a small but remarkable family of birds, characteristic of some parts of the Australian region, to which it is almost peculiar. The Mega podiidae, with the Cracidae and Phasianidae, form that division of the sub-order Galli named by Huxley

Peristero podes (Proc. Zool. Soc., 1868, p. 296). Their most remarkable habit is that of leaving their eggs to be hatched without incubation, burying them in the ground (as many reptiles do), or in a mound of earth, leaves and rotten wood which they scratch up. This habit attracted attention nearly four hundred years ago,' but the accounts given of it by various travellers were generally discredited, and as examples of the birds, probably from their unattractive plumage, appear not to have been brought to Europe, no one of them was seen by any ornithologist or scientifically described until near the end of the first quarter of the 19th century. The first member of the family to receive authoritative recognition was one of the largest, inhabiting the continent of Australia, where it is known as the brush-turkey, and was originally described by J. Latham in 1821 under the misleading name of the New Holland vulture. It is the Catheturus lathami of modern ornithologists, and is nearly the size of a hen turkey. This East Australian bird is of a sooty-brown colour, relieved beneath by the lighter edging of some of the feathers, but the head and neck are nearly bare, beset with fine bristles, the skin being of a deep pinkishred, passing above the breast into a large wattle of bright yellow. The tail is commonly carried upright and partly folded, something like that of a domestic fowl. Allied to it are three or four species of Talegallus, from New Guinea and adjacent islands.

Another form, an inhabitant of South and West Australia, commonly known in England as the mallee-bird, but to the colonists as the "native pheasant "-the Lipoa ocellata, as described by J. Gould in the Proc. Zool. Soc. (1840), p. 126, has much shorter tarsi and toes, the head entirely clothed, and the tail expanded. Its plumage presents a combination of greys and browns of various tints, interspersed with black, white and buff, the wing-coverts and feathers of the back bearing each near the tip an oval or subcircular patch, whence the scientific name of the bird is given, while a stripe of black feathers with a median line of white extends down the front of the throat from the chin to the breast. There is but one species of this genus known, as is also the case with the next to be mentioned, a bird long known to inhabit Celebes, but not fully 1 Antonio Pigafetta, one of the survivors of Magellan's voyage, records in his journal, under date of April 1521, among the peculiarities of the Philippine Islands, then first discovered by Europeans, the existence of a bird there, about the size of a fowl, which laid its eggs, as big as a duck's, in the sand, and left them to be hatched by the heat of the sun (Premier voyage autour du monde, ed. Amoretti, Paris, A.R. ix. 88). More than a hundred years later the Jesuit Nieremberg, in his Historia naturae, published at Antwerp named "Tapun," not larger than a dove, which, with its tail (!) in 1635, described (p. 207) a bird called "Daie," and by the natives and feet excavated a nest in sandy places and laid therein eggs bigger than those of a goose. The publication at Rome in 1651 of Hernan dez's Hist. avium novae Hispaniae shows that his papers must have mentioned, but, as not unusual with him, misprinted the names which been accessible to Nieremberg, who took from them the passage just stand in Hernandez's work (p. 56, cap. 220)" Daic and "Tapum respectively, and omitted his predecessor's important addition "Viuit in Philippicis." Not long after, the Dominican Navarrete, a missionary to China, made a considerable stay in the Philippines, and returning to Europe in 1673 wrote an account of the Chinese empire, of which Churchill (Collection of Voyages and Travels, vol. i.) gave an English translation in 1704. It is therein stated (p. 45) that in many of the islands of the Malay Archipelago "there is a very singular bird call'd Tabon," and that "What I and many more admire is, that it being no bigger in body than an ordinary chicken, tho' long legg'd, yet it lays an egg larger than a gooses, so that the egg is bigger than the bird itself. . In order to lay its eggs, it digs in the sand above a yard in depth; after laying, it fills up the hole and makes it even with the rest; there the eggs hatch with the heat of the sun and sand." Gemelli Careri, who travelled from 1663 to 1699, and in the latter year published an account of his voyage round the world, gives similar evidence " in the Philippine respecting this bird, which he calls "tavon,' Islands (Voy. du tour du monde, ed. Paris, 1727, v. 157, 158). The megapode of Luzon is fairly described by Camel or Camelli in his observations on the birds of the Philippines communicated by Petiver to the Royal Society in 1703 (Phil. Trans. xxiii. 1398). In 1726 Valentyn published his elaborate work on the East Indies, wherein (deel iii. bk. v. p. 320) he correctly describes the megapode of Amboina under the name of "malleloe," and also a larger kind found in Celebes,