VOLUME XIII SLICE VI Home, Daniel to Hortensius, Quintus (continued 3)

United States.—Homoeopathy was introduced into the United States by Dr Hans Birch Gram, who was born in Boston. His father being Danish, Gram in his eighteenth year went to Copenhagen, where he graduated in 1814. In 1823 he became acquainted with homoeopathy, and brought a knowledge of it to America in 1825 when he settled in New York. The first homoeopathic association was formed in 1833 in Philadelphia, the second in New York, 1834, and homoeopathy became known in the different states somewhat in the following order: New York, 1825; Pennsylvania, 1828; Louisiana, 1836; Connecticut, 1837; Massachusetts, 1837-1838; Maryland, 1837; Delaware, 1837; Kentucky, 1837; Vermont, 1838; Rhode Island, 1839; Ohio, 1839; New Jersey, 1840; Maine, 1840; New Hampshire, 1840; Michigan, 1841; Georgia, 1842; Wisconsin, 1842; Alabama, 1843; Illinois, 1843; Tennessee, 1844; Missouri, 1844; Texas, 1848; Minnesota, 1852; Nebraska, 1862; Colorado, 1863; Iowa, 1871. After 1871 the spread of the system was rapid throughout every state in the Union, and it is in the United States that homoeopathy principally flourishes. There are thousands of homoeopathic physicians, and their clients number several millions. It may be noted that departments of homoeopathy are connected with the universities of Boston, Michigan, Iowa, Minnesota and Kansas City.

Canada.—The early history of homoeopathy can be traced back nearly to 1850 in the province of Quebec. In the Dominion of Canada the various provinces control the licensing of physicians, excepting in Quebec, which is the only province having a separate homoeopathic board of examiners. This is under the control of the Montreal homoeopathic Association, and is known as the College of Homoeopathic Physicians and Surgeons of Montreal. Three examiners are annually appointed by the association. Successful candidates receive the diploma of the college, and are entitled to add to their degree the letters M.C.H.P.S. A certificate of successful examination is forwarded to the lieutenant-governor at Quebec, who, “if satisfied of the loyalty, integrity and good morals of the applicant, may grant him a license to practise surgery, physic and midwifery, or either of them, in the province of Quebec.” The word “loyalty” has been decided by the provincial secretary to mean a British subject. This is the only government medical license now issued in the British empire, the others being by provincial boards or colleges of physicians and surgeons. In 1894 there was no homoeopathic institution in the province; at present the Montreal Homoeopathic Hospital is in active operation. Two homoeopathic papers are published monthly—the Homoeopathic Record in Montreal, and the Homoeopathic Messenger in Toronto. In 1870, in the province of Ontario, the three schools, allopathic, homoeopathic and eclectic, united for examining purposes into one board called the medical council, seventeen members representing the old school and five the other two systems. Finally the eclectics were merged in the old school, the board appointing five of Hahnemann’s followers for examining purposes. Grace Hospital at Toronto (erected 1892) was begun as a dispensary in 1887.

Germany.—In 1810 Hahnemann published his Organon, which was the starting-point of homoeopathy in Germany. In 1811 an endeavour was made to found an institution in Leipzig in which practitioners might learn the new method of treatment theoretically and practically, but it was not a success, as the entire tide of professional opinion was against the system. In 1829, at the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of Hahnemann’s doctorate, the German Central Society was organized, holding its first meeting in 1830. In the university hospital of Munich some experiments were made to test the efficacy of homoeopathic medicines, but these were not successful. In 1831 the government prohibited homoeopathists from dispensing their own medicines; this was a severe blow to the system. In 1834 there was a division among the homoeopathists themselves, which much retarded the progress of the school. A homoeopathic hospital was established about this time (January 1833) in Leipzig, but there was such constant wrangling among the physicians connected with it that its sphere of usefulness was curtailed, and it was finally converted into a dispensary. The Baden Homoeopathic Society was established in 1834. The homoeopathic hospital in Munich was established in 1836, but suffered a similar fate to that of Leipzig, and was converted into a dispensary. The rather equivocal success of these hospitals in Saxony and Bavaria was in direct contrast to the fate of two newly established hospitals in Austria, one in Vienna and the other in Linz, which were very successful, and aroused great interest both among physicians and laymen. During the political confusion of 1846 and 1849 there was complete stagnation of everything medical in Germany. But during all these years, though the public institutions were few, the literature on homoeopathic subjects became very extensive, and exercised a significant influence upon the system in all parts of the world. Hahnemann died in 1843, and on the 10th of August 1851 a bronze monument to him was unveiled at Leipzig. The Leipzig dispensary lived thirty-three years. From 1842 to 1874 there were treated in this institution 65,106 patients. In 1901 there were about 250 homoeopathic physicians in Germany; they appeared to be strongest at Berlin, in the province of Brandenburg, in Pomerania and Westphalia, Saxony, Hessen and in Württemberg.

Austria-Hungary.—Homoeopathy was introduced into Austria about 1817, and in 1819 its practice was forbidden by law. Shortly afterwards the physician attending the archduke John became a homoeopath. In 1825 the doctrine was introduced into Vienna. To test the efficacy of the system Francis I. ordered that experiments be made with homoeopathic medicines, and for this purpose a ward furnished with twelve beds was allotted. The results were satisfactory to the new system, and it made gigantic strides in Vienna. During the cholera epidemic of 1836 an increased impetus was given to the new school by the reported brilliant successes of the treatment. Societies were founded and journals published. In 1846 a second hospital was founded. In 1850 a third hospital was opened, and clinical lectures upon the system were delivered. In 1873 the Society of Homoeopathic Physicians was formed. Between the years 1873 and 1893 homoeopathy declined. In 1901, in thirty-seven cities and towns there were to be found about fifty physicians and two hospitals, and it was estimated that about seventy-five more were scattered in Moravia, Bohemia, Tirol, Salzburg and the coast provinces. There is a professorship of homoeopathy at the University of Budapest, and homoeopathic clinics are held at the new Rochus Hospital in Üllöi Street, and also in the homoeopathic department of the Hospital Bethesda of the Reformed Community. The Elizabeth Hospital, exclusively homoeopathic, has existed for many years.

Russia.—The homoeopathic system was introduced into Russia in 1823. In 1825 great impetus was given to the new doctrine by the conversion of Dr Bigel, physician to the grand duke Constantine. In 1829 the grand duke ordered a series of experiments to be conducted to prove the truth or fallacy of homoeopathy, and they demonstrated the success of the new school. In 1841 a hospital was established in Moscow, and in 1849 similar institutions were founded in Nizhniy-Novgorod. Since then homoeopathy has been steadily practised, and has penetrated to the remotest parts of Russia. In 1881 the civil engineers proposed to commemorate the virtues of the emperor Alexander II. by the erection of a hospital; a committee for collecting funds was created, and 58,064 roubles were handed to the Charity Society of the followers of homoeopathy at St Petersburg for the erection and founding of a homoeopathic hospital. The foundation stone of the edifice was laid on 19th June 1893, the emperor Alexander III. giving 5000 roubles. The inauguration of a new dispensary and a pharmacy took place on the 19th of April 1898, and the hospital itself, intended originally for fifty beds, was opened on the 1st of November 1898. There are sixteen free beds, three of them being in the name of the emperor Nicholas, the empress Maria Feodorovna, and the emperor Alexander III. On the 28th of January 1899 an imperial edict was issued granting the rights of public service to the doctors of the hospital and dispensaries of the Charity Society, thus placing them on an equality with the doctors of the prevailing medical school.

France.—Homoeopathy was first introduced into France in 1830 by Count de Guidi, doctor of medicine, doctor of science, and inspector of the university, who practised in Lyons. About the same year Dr Antoine Petroz, widely known by his Grand dictionnaire des sciences médicales, began practising homoeopathy in Paris, and his establishment became the headquarters of the new system there. In 1835 Hahnemann himself came to the capital. In 1832 the homoeopathic method of treating disease was introduced into the Hospice de Choisy, and in 1842 into the hospital of Carentan. Tessier practised the new doctrine in his wards in the Hospital St Marguérite, and in the Children’s Hospital up to the year 1862, when he retired. The first homoeopathic society was established in 1832 (the Société Gallicain), Hahnemann becoming president in 1835; in 1845 the Société de Médecine Homéopathique was organized; and in 1860 the two were united for the better interests of the school. In 1901 there were at Paris three hospitals—the Hospital St Jacques with fifty-five beds, the Hahnemann Hospital with thirty-five beds, and the new Protestant Hospital for Children with twenty-five-beds. At Lyons there is the Hospital St Luc. The medical journals include L’Art médical, La Revue homéopathique belge, Journal belge d’homéopathie, La Thérapeutique Intégrale, La Revue homéopathique française. In the year 1900 the medical officers of the republic having supervision over the medical department of the International Exhibition officially recognized the members of the homoeopathic school, and arranged for the proper accommodation and reception of the International Congress of Homoeopathic Physicians held in June. On the 30th of that month, with appropriate ceremonies, the remains of Hahnemann were removed from the cemetery of Montmartre and deposited in Père-la-Chaise, and a monument bearing a suitable inscription was erected to the memory of the founder of homoeopathy.

Italy.—The Austrians when they entered Naples in 1821 brought homoeopathy into Italy, the general in command of the army being a devoted friend of Hahnemann. In 1828 Dr Count Sebastian de Guidi came from Lyons and assisted in spreading the doctrine. During the period from 1830 to 1860 many physicians practised homoeopathy, and the literature on the subject became extensive. A homoeopathic clinic was established and a ward opened in Trinity Hospital at Naples, and a homoeopathic physician was appointed to the count of Syracuse. During the severe cholera epidemics of 1854, 1855, 1865 the success of homoeopathic treatment of that disease was so marked under the care of Dr Rubini that the attention of the authorities was directed to the system. In 1860 the homoeopathic practice was introduced into the Spedale della Cesarea, and since that period homoeopathy has been recognized with more or less favour in most of the cities. The Italian Homoeopathic Institute is recognized by royal warrant as an established institution, and its regulations are approved by the government. In Turin the legal seat of the Homoeopathic Institute, there is a hospital under the management of the State Association. The homoeopathic medical press consists of the Revista Omiopatica, established in 1855, and L’Omiopatico in Italia, the organ of the Italian Homoeopathic Institute, which first appeared in 1884.

Spain.—Homoeopathy was introduced into Spain in 1829 by a physician to the Royal Commission sent by the king of Naples to attend the marriage of Maria Christina with Don Ferdinand VII. Shortly after this, a merchant of Cadiz visited Hahnemann in Coethen, and was cured of a serious disorder; he returned to Spain with a supply of homoeopathic literature, and immediately sent a medical student to Leipzig to study the new system. In 1843 many cases of cholera were treated homoeopathically in Madrid. The civil war, which did not terminate until 1840, arrested all medical investigation in Spain, but in 1843 there still existed in Madrid five pharmacies and a number of homoeopathic physicians. About this time Dr Tosi Nuñez returned from an investigation of the new system with Hahnemann, and owing to his success in the treatment of disease was created one of the physicians of the bedchamber to the queen, who soon afterwards conferred upon him the title of marquis, with the grand crosses of the Charles III. and of the Civil Order of Beneficiencia. This recognition by high authority gave an impetus to homoeopathy which has continued ever since.

Denmark.—Homoeopathy was unknown in Denmark until the year 1821, when Hans Christian Lund, a medical practitioner, adopted it. Hahnemann, however, had been both before and after that time consulted by Danes, and consequently homoeopathic therapeutics was recognized in different parts of the country. Lund translated many of Hahnemann’s works into Danish, as well as those of other eminent members of the new school.

(W. T. H.)

1 An interesting controversy has been carried on between the members of the homoeopathic school as to the proper construction of the Latin motto which constitutes its acknowledged basis. For many years the verb at the conclusion of the sentence was used in the indicative mood, curantur, thus making the sentence a positive one. After extended research it has been discovered that Hahnemann himself never employed the word curantur as descriptive of his law of cure, but always wrote curentur, which greatly modifies the meaning of the phrase. If the subjunctive mood be used, the motto reads, “Let similars be treated by similars,” or “similars should be treated by similars.” The reading similia similibus curentur was officially adopted as the correct reading of the sentence by the American Institute of Homoeopathy at its session held in Atlantic City, N.J., on the 20th of June 1899; and the words are so inscribed on the monument erected to the memory of Hahnemann and unveiled in Washington, D.C., on the 23rd of June 1900, and also are those carved upon the tomb of Hahnemann in Père-la-Chaise, Paris.

2 Some points of Hahnemann’s system were borrowed from previous writers—as he himself, though imperfectly, admits. Not to mention others, he was anticipated by Hippocrates, and especially by Paracelsus (1495-1541). The identical words similia similibus curantur occur in the Geneva edition (1658) of the works of Paracelsus, as a marginal heading of one of the paragraphs; and in the “Fragmenta Medica,” Op. Omnia, i. 168, 169, occurs the following passage:

Simile similis cura; non contrarium.

“Quisquis enim cum laude agere Medicum volet, is has nugas longe valere jubeat. Nec enim ullus unquam morbus calidus per frigida sanatus fuit, nec frigidus per calida. Simile autem suum simile frequenter curavit, scilicet Mercurius sulphur, et sulphur Mercurium; et sal ilia, velut et illa sal. Interdum quidem cum proprietate junctum frigidum sanavit calidum; sed id non factum est ratione frigidi, verum ratione naturae alterius, quam a primo illo omnino diversam facimus.”

It is very remarkable that in Hahnemann’s enumeration of authors who anticipated him in regard to the doctrine of Similia, he makes no mention of the views of Paracelsus, though the very words seem to be taken from the works of that physician. The other point in Hahnemann’s doctrine—that medicines should be tried first on healthy persons—he admits to have been enunciated by Haller. Roughly it has been acted on by physicians in all ages, but certainly more systematically since Hahnemann’s time. In the most characteristic feature of Hahnemann’s practice—“the potentizing,” “dynamizing,” of medicinal substances—he appears to have been original.

3 Two methods of preparing medicines are recognized, one on the decimal, the other on the centesimal scale. The pure tinctures are denominated “mother tinctures,” and represented by the Greek φ. To make a first decimal dilution or first decimal trituration, 10 drops of the mother tincture, or 10 grains of a crude substance, are mixed with 90 drops of alcohol, or 90 grains of saccharum lactis (sugar of milk) respectively. The liquid is thoroughly shaken, or the powder carefully triturated, and the bottles containing them marked 1 X, meaning first decimal dilution or trituration. To make the 2 X potency, 10 drops or 10 grains of this first dilution or trituration are mixed with 90 drops of pure alcohol, or 90 grains of milk sugar, and are succussed or triturated as above described, and marked 2 X dilution or trituration. This subdivision of particles may be continued to an indefinite degree. On the Hahnemannian or centesimal scale the medicines are prepared in the same manner, the difference being that 1 drop or grain is mixed with 99 drops or grains, to make the first centesimal, which is marked 1 c or 1 simply, and so on for the second and higher dilutions.

HOMONYM (Gr. ὁμώνομος, having the same name, from ὅμος, same, alike, and ὄνομα, name), a term in philology for those words which differ in sense but are alike either in sound or spelling or both. Words alike only in spelling but not in sound, e.g. “bow,” are sometimes called homographs; and words alike only in sound but not in spelling, e.g. “meat,” “meet,” homophones. Skeat (Etymol. Dict.) gives a list of English homonyms.

HOMS, or Hums (anc. Emesa or Emessa, near the Hittite Kadesh), a town of Syria, on the right bank of the Orontes, and capital of a sanjak in the vilayet of Syria (Damascus). Pop. 30,000 (20,000 Moslem, 10,000 Christian). The importance of the place arises from its command of the great north road from Egypt, Palestine and Damascus by the Orontes valley. Invading armies from the south have often been opposed near Homs, from the time of Rameses II., who had to fight the battle of Kadesh, to that of Ibrahim Pasha, who broke the first line of Ottoman defence in 1831 by his victory there. Ancient Emesa, in the district of Apamea, was a very old Syrian city, devoted to the worship of Baal, the sun god, of whose great temple the emperor Heliogabalus was originally a priest (A.D. 218). As a centre of native influences it was overawed by the Seleucid foundation of Apamea; but it opposed the Roman advance. There Aurelian crushed, in A.D. 272, the Syrian national movement led by Zenobia. Caracalla made it a Roman colony, and later it became the Capital of a small province, Phoenicia Libanesia or ad Libanum. About 630 it was captured by the Moslem leader, Khalid ibn Walid, who is buried there. It now became the capital of a jund, or military district, which under the Omayyad Caliphs extended from Palmyra to the sea. Under the Arabs it was one of the largest cities in Syria, with walls and a strong citadel, which stood on a hill, occupying perhaps the site of the great sun temple. The ruins of this castle, blown up by Ibrahim Pasha, are still the most conspicuous feature of Homs, and contain many remains of ancient buildings. Its men were noted for their courage in war, and its women for their beauty. The climate was extolled for its excellence, and the land for its fertility. A succession of gardens bordered the Orontes, and the vineyards were remarkable for their abundant yield of grapes. When the place capitulated the great church of St John was divided between the Christians and Moslems, an arrangement which apparently lasted until the arrival of the Turks. At the end of the 11th century it fell into crusading hands, but was recovered by the Moslems under Saladin in 1187. Its decay probably dates from the invasion of the Mongols (1260), who fought two important battles with the Egyptians (1281 and 1299) in its vicinity. The construction of a carriage road to Tripoli led to a partial revival of prosperity and to an export of cereals and fruit, and this growth has, in turn, been accentuated by the railway, which now connects it with Aleppo and the Damascus-Beirut line. The district is well planted with mulberries and produces much silk, most of which is worked up on the spot.

(D. G. H.)

HO-NAN, a central province of China, bounded N. partly by the Hwang-ho (which it crosses to the west of Ho-nan Fu, forming an arm northwards between the provinces of Shan-si and Chih-li), on the W. by Shen-si, on the S. by Hu-peh, and on the E. by Ngan-hui. It occupies an area of 81,000 sq. m., with a population of about 22,100,000, and contains nine prefectural cities. Its capital is K’ai-fêng Fu. The prefecture of Hwai-k’ing, north of the Hwang-ho, consists of a fertile plain, “rendered park-like by numerous plantations of trees and shrubs, among which thick bosquets of bamboo contrast with the gloomy groves of cypress.” All kinds of cereals grow luxuriantly, and the general productiveness of the district is indicated by the extreme denseness of the population. The most noticeable feature in that portion of the province which is properly called Ho-nan is the Fu-niu Shan range, which runs east and west across this part of the province. Coal is found on the south of the Hwang-ho in the districts of Ho-nan Fu, the ancient capital, Lushan and Ju Chow. The chief products of the province are, however, agricultural, especially in the valley of the Tang-ho and Pai-ho, which is an extensive and densely populated plain running north and south from the Fu-niu Shan. Cotton is also grown extensively and forms the principal article of export, and a considerable quantity of wild silk is produced from the Fu-niu Shan. Three roads from the east and south unite at Ho-nan Fu, and one from the west. The southern road leads to Ju Chow, where it forks, one branch going to Shi-ki-chên, connecting the trade from Fan-cheng, Han-kow, and the Han river generally, and the other to Chow-kia-k’ow near the city of Ch’ên-chow Fu, at the confluence of the three rivers which unite to form the Sha-ho; the second road runs parallel with the Hwang-ho to K’ai-fêng Fu; the third crosses the Hwang-ho at Mêngching Hien, and passes thence in a north-easterly direction to Hwai-k’ing Fu, Sew-wu Hien and Wei-hui Fu, at which place it joins the high road from Peking to Fan-cheng; and the western road follows the southern bank of the Hwang-ho for 250 m. to its great bend at the fortified pass known as the Tung-kwan, where it joins the great wagon road leading through Shan-si from Peking to Si-gan Fu. Ho-nan is now traversed north to south by the Peking-Hankow railway (completed 1905). The line crosses the Hwang-ho by Yung-tse and runs east of the Fu-niu Shan. Branch lines serve Ho-nan Fu and K’ai-fêng Fu.

HONAVAR, or Onore, a seaport of British India, in the North Kanara district of Bombay. Pop. (1901) 6929. It is mentioned as a place of trade as early as the 16th century, and is associated with two interesting incidents in Anglo-Indian history. In 1670, the English factors here had a bull-dog which unfortunately killed a sacred bull, in revenge for which they were all murdered, to the number of eighteen persons, by an enraged mob. In 1784 it was bravely defended for three months by Captain Torriano and a detachment of sepoys against the army of Tippoo Sultan.

HONDA, or San Bartolomeo de Honda, a town of the department of Tolima, Colombia, on the W. bank of the Magdalena river, 580 m. above its mouth. In 1906 Mr F. Loraine Petre estimated the population at 7000. It is about 650 ft. above sea-level and stands at the entrance to a narrow valley formed by spurs of the Central Cordillera, through which a picturesque little stream, called the Guali, flows into the Magdalena. The town overlooks the rapids of the Magdalena, and is shut in closely by spurs of the Eastern and Central Cordilleras. The climate is hot and damp and the temperature frequently rises to 102° F. in the shade. Honda dates back to the beginning of the 17th century, and has been one of the important centres of traffic in South America for three hundred years. Within the city there is an iron bridge across the Guali, and there is a suspension bridge across the Magdalena at the head of the rapids. A railway 18 m. long connects with the landing place of La Dorada, or Las Yeguas, where the steamers of the lower Magdalena discharge and receive their cargoes (the old landing at Carocali nearer the rapids having been abandoned), and with Arrancaplumas, 1½ m. above, where navigation of the upper river begins. Up to 1908 the greater part of the traffic for Bogotá crossed the river at this point, and was carried on mule-back over the old camino real, which was at best only a rough bridlepath over which transportation to Bogotá (67 m. distant) was laborious and highly expensive; now the transshipment is made to smaller steamboats on the upper river for carriage to Girardot, 93 m. distant, from which place a railway runs to the Bogotá plateau. Honda was nearly destroyed by an earthquake in 1808.

HONDECOETER, MELCHIOR D’ (c. 1636-1695), Dutch painter, was born at Utrecht, it is said, about 1636, and died at Amsterdam on the 3rd of April 1695. Old historians say that, being the grandson of Gillis and son of Gisbert d’Hondecoeter, as well as nephew of J. B. Weenix, he was brought up by the last two to the profession of painting. Of Weenix we know that he married one Josina d’Hondecoeter in 1638. Melchior was, therefore, related to Weenix, who certainly influenced his style. As to Gillis and Gisbert some points still remain obscure, and it is difficult to accept the statement that they stood towards each other in the relation of father and son, since both were registered as painters at Utrecht in 1637. Both it appears had practised art before coming to Utrecht, but where they resided or what they painted is uncertain. Unhappily pictures scarcely help us to clear up the mystery. In the Fürstenberg collection at Donaueschingen there is a “Concert of Birds” dated 1620, and signed with the monogram G. D. H.; and we may presume that G. D. H. is the man whose “Hen and Chickens in a Landscape” in the gallery of Rotterdam is inscribed “G. D. Hondecoeter, 1652”; but is the first letter of the monogram to stand for Gillis or Gisbert? In the museums of Dresden and Cassel landscapes with sportsmen are catalogued under the name of Gabriel de Heusch (?), one of them dated 1529, and certified with the monogram G. D. H., challenging attention by resemblance to a canvas of the same class inscribed G. D. Hond. in the Berlin Museum. The question here is also whether G. means Gillis or Gisbert. Obviously there are two artists to consider, one of whom paints birds, the other landscapes and sportsmen. Perhaps the first is Gisbert, whose son Melchior also chose birds as his peculiar subject. Weenix too would naturally teach his nephew to study the feathered tribe. Melchior, however, began his career with a different speciality from that by which he is usually known. Mr de Stuers affirms that he produced sea-pieces. One of his earliest works is a “Tub with Fish,” dated 1655, in the gallery of Brunswick. But Melchior soon abandoned fish or fowl. He acquired celebrity as a painter of birds only, which he represented not exclusively, like Fyt, as the gamekeeper’s perquisite after a day’s shooting, or stock of a poulterer’s shop, but as living beings with passions, joys, fears and quarrels, to which naturalists will tell us that birds are subject. Without the brilliant tone and high finish of Fyt, his Dutch rival’s birds are full of action; and, as Bürger truly says, Hondecoeter displays the maternity of the hen with as much tenderness and feeling as Raphael the maternity of Madonnas. But Fyt was at home in depicting the coat of deer and dogs us well as plumage. Hondecoeter cultivates a narrower field, and seldom goes beyond a cock-fight or a display of mere bird life. Very few of his pictures are dated, though more are signed. Amongst the former we should note the “Jackdaw deprived of his Borrowed Plumes” (1671), at the Hague, of which Earl Cadogan has a variety; or “Game and Poultry” and “A Spaniel hunting a Partridge” (1672), in the gallery of Brussels; or “A Park with Poultry” (1686) at the Hermitage of St Petersburg. Hondecoeter, in great favour with the magnates of the Netherlands, became a member of the painters’ academy at the Hague in 1659. William III. employed him to paint his menagerie at Loo, and the picture, now at the Hague museum, shows that he could at a pinch overcome the difficulty of representing India’s cattle, elephants and gazelles. But he is better in homelier works, with which he adorned the royal chateaux of Bensberg and Oranienstein at different periods of his life (Hague and Amsterdam). In 1688 Hondecoeter took the freedom of the city of Amsterdam, where he resided till his death. His earliest works are more conscientious, lighter and more transparent than his later ones. At all times he is bold Of touch and sure of eye, giving the motion of birds with great spirit and accuracy. His masterpieces are at the Hague and at Amsterdam. But there are fine examples in private collections in England, and in the public galleries of Berlin, Caen, Carlsruhe, Cassel, Cologne, Copenhagen, Dresden, Dublin, Florence, Glasgow, Hanover, London, Lyons, Montpellier, Munich, Paris, Rotterdam, Rouen, St Petersburg, Stuttgart and Vienna.

HONDURAS, a republic of Central America, bounded on the N. by the Caribbean Sea, E. by Nicaragua, S. by Nicaragua, the Pacific Ocean and Salvador, and W. by Guatemala. (For map see Central America.) Pop. (1905) 500,136; area, about 46,500 sq. m. Honduras is said to owe its name, meaning in Spanish “depths,” to the difficulty experienced by its original Spanish explorers in finding anchorage off its shores; Cape Gracias à Dios (Cape “Thanks to God”) is the name bestowed, for analogous reasons, on its easternmost headland, which shelters a small harbour, now included in Nicaragua. Modern navigators are not confronted by the same difficulty; for, although the north coast is unbroken by any remarkable inlet except the Carataska Lagoon, a land-locked lake on the east, with a narrow entrance from the sea, there are many small bays and estuaries, such as those of Puerto Cortes, Omoa, Ulua, La Ceiba and Trujillo, which serve as harbours. The broad basin of the Caribbean Sea, bounded by Honduras, Guatemala and British Honduras, is known as the bay or gulf of Honduras. Several islets and the important group of the Bay Islands (q.v.) belong to the republic. On the Pacific the Hondurian littoral is short but of great commercial value; for it consists of a frontage of some 60 m. on the Bay of Fonseca (q.v.), one of the finest natural harbours in the world. The islands of Tigre, Sacate Grande and Gueguensi, in the bay, belong to Honduras.

The frontier which separates the republic from Nicaragua extends across the continent from E.N.E to W.S.W. It is defined by the river Segovia, Wanks or Coco, for about one-third of the distance; it then deflects across the watershed on the east and south of the river Choluteca, crosses the main Nicaraguan Cordillera (mountain chain) and follows the river Negro to the Bay of Fonseca. The line of separation from Salvador is irregularly drawn, first in a northerly and then in a westerly direction; beginning at the mouth of the river Goascoran, in the Bay of Fonseca, it ends 12 m. W. of San Francisco city. At this point begins the Guatemalan frontier, the largest section of which is delimited along the crests of the Sierra de Merendon. On the Caribbean seaboard the estuary of the Motagua forms the boundary between Honduras and Guatemala.

Physical Features.—The general aspect of the country is mountainous; its southern half is traversed by a continuation of the main Nicaraguan Cordillera. The chain does not, in this republic, approach within 50 or 60 m. of the Pacific; nor does it throughout maintain its general character of an unbroken range, but sometimes turns back on itself, forming interior basins or valleys, within which are collected the headwaters of the streams that traverse the country in the direction of the Atlantic Ocean. Nevertheless, viewed from the Pacific, it presents the appearance of a great natural wall, with many volcanic peaks towering above it and with a lower range of mountains intervening between it and the sea. It would almost seem that at one time the Pacific broke at the foot of the great mountain barrier, and that the subordinate coast range was subsequently thrust up by volcanic forces. At one point the main range is interrupted by a great transverse valley or plain known as the plain of Comayagua, which has an extreme length of about 40 m., with a width of from 5 to 15 m. From this plain the valley of the river Humuya extends north to the Atlantic, and the valley of the Goascoran extends south to the Pacific. These three depressions collectively constitute a great transverse valley reaching from sea to sea, which was pointed out soon after the conquest as an appropriate course for inter-oceanic communication. The mountains of the northern half of Honduras are not volcanic in character and are inferior in altitude to those of the south, which sometimes exceed 10,000 ft. The relief of all the highlands of the Atlantic watershed is extremely varied; its culminating points are probably in the mountain mass about the sources of the Choluteca, Sulaco and Roman, and in the Sierra de Pija, near the coast. Farther eastward the different ranges are less clearly marked and the surface of the country resembles a plateau intersected by numerous watercourses.

The rivers of the Atlantic slope of Honduras are numerous and some of them of large size and navigable. The largest is the Ulua, with its tributary the Humuya. It rises in the plain of Comayagua and flows north to the Atlantic; it drains a wide expanse of territory, comprehending nearly one-third of the entire state, and probably discharges a greater amount of water into the sea than any other river of Central America, the Segovia excepted. It may be navigated by steamers of light draught for the greater part of its course. The Rio Roman or Aguan is a large stream falling into the Atlantic near Trujillo, with a total length of about 120 m. Its largest tributary is the Rio Mangualil, celebrated for its gold washings, and it may be ascended by boats of light draft for 80 m. Rio Tinto, Negro or Black River, called also Poyer or Poyas, is a considerable stream, navigable by small vessels for about 60 m. Some English settlements were made on its banks during the 18th century. The Patuca rises near the frontier of Nicaragua, and enters the Atlantic east of the Brus or Brewer lagoon. The Segovia is the longest river in Central America, rising within 50 m. of the Bay of Fonseca, and flowing into the Caribbean Sea at Cape Gracias à Dios (see Nicaragua). Three considerable rivers flow into the Pacific—the Goascoran, Nacaome and Choluteca, the last named having a length of about 150 m. The Goascoran, which almost interlocks with the Humuya, in the plain of Comayagua, has a length of about 80 m. The lake of Yojoa or Taulébe is the only large inland lake in Honduras, and is about 25 m. in length, by 6 to 8 in breadth. Its surface is 2050 ft. above the sea. It has two outlets on the south, the rivers Jaitique and Sacapa, which unite about 15 m. from the lake; and it is drained on the north by the Rio Blanco, a narrow, deep stream falling into the Ulua. It has also a feeder on the north, in the form of a subterranean stream of beautiful clear water, which here comes to the surface. The Carataska or Caratasca lagoon is a shallow salt-water lake connected by a narrow channel with the Atlantic, and near the mouth of the Segovia. It contains several large sandy islands.

Honduras resembles the neighbouring countries in the general character of its geological formations, fauna and flora. Here, as in other Central American states, there are but two seasons, the wet, from May to November, and the dry, from November to May. On the moist lowlands of the Atlantic coast the climate is oppressive, but on the highlands of the interior it is delightful. At Tegucigalpa, on the uplands, a year’s observations showed the maximum temperature to be 90° F. in May, and the minimum to be 50° F. in December, the range of variation during the whole year being within 40° F.

See also Central America: Geology, Fauna, Flora, Climate.

Inhabitants.—The inhabitants of Honduras are in many cases of the Indian or aboriginal type, and the European element is very small, although it shares in the social, political and economic preponderance of the Spanish-speaking half-castes (Ladinos or Mestizos), who are the most numerous section of the population. Throughout the country there are many interesting relics of the native civilization which was destroyed by the Spanish invaders in the 16th century. In the eastern portion of the state, between the Rio Roman, Cape Gracias à Dios, and the Segovia river, the country is almost exclusively occupied by native Indian tribes, known under the general names of Xicaques and Poyas. In many districts the Indians are known as Lencas, a generic name which includes several tribes akin to the Mayans of Guatemala. Portions of all of these tribes have accepted the Roman Catholic religion, and live in peaceful neighbourhood and good understanding with the white inhabitants. There are, however, considerable numbers, probably about 90,000 in all, who live among the mountains and still conform closely to the aboriginal modes of life. They all cultivate the soil, and are good and industrious labourers. A small portion of the coast, above Cape Gracias, is occupied by the Sambos, a mixed race of Indians and negroes, which, however, is fast disappearing. Spreading along the entire north coast are the Caribs, a vigorous race, descendants of the Caribs of St Vincent, one of the Windward Islands. These, to the number of 5000, were deported in 1796 by the English and landed on the island of Roatan. They still retain their native language, although it tends to disappear and be replaced by Spanish and a bastard dialect of English; they are active, industrious and provident, forming the chief reliance of the mahogany cutters on the coast. A portion of them, who have a mixture of negro blood, are called the Black Caribs. They profess the Roman Catholic religion, but retain many of their native rites and superstitions. In the departments of Gracias, Comayagua and Choluteca are many purely Indian towns.

The aggregate population, according to an official estimate made in 1905, is 500,136, but a complete and satisfactory census cannot be taken throughout the country, since the ignorant masses of the people, and especially the Indians, avoid a census as in some way connected with military conscription or taxation. The bulk of the Spanish population exists on the Pacific slope of the continent, while on the Atlantic declivity the country is uninhabited or but sparsely occupied by Indian tribes, of which the number is wholly unknown. In 1905 there were fewer than 11 inhabitants per sq. m., but all the available data tend to show that the population increases rapidly, owing to the continuous excess of births over deaths. The first census, taken in 1791, gave the total population as only 95,500. There is little emigration or immigration.

Chief Towns.—The capital is Tegucigalpa (pop. 1905, about 35,000); other important towns are Jutigalpa (18,000), Comayagua (8000), and the seaports of Amapala (4000), Trujillo (4000), and Puerto Cortes (2500). These are described in separate articles. The towns of Nacaome, La Esperanza, Choluteca and Santa Rosa have upwards of 10,000 inhabitants.

Communications.—Means of communication are very defective. In 1905 the only railway in the country was that from Puerto Cortes to La Pimienta, a distance of 57 m. This is a section of the proposed inter-oceanic railway for which the external debt of the republic was incurred. For the completion of the line concessions, one after another, were granted, and expired or were revoked. Other railways are projected, including one along the Atlantic coast, an extension from La Pimienta to La Brea on the Pacific, and a line from Tegucigalpa to the port of San Lorenzo. The capital is connected with other towns by fairly well made roads, which, however, are not kept in good repair. In the interior generally, all travelling and transport are by mules and ox-carts over roads which defy description.

Honduras joined the Postal Union in 1879, The telegraph service is conducted by the government and is inefficient. Telephones are in use in Tegucigalpa and a few of the more important towns.

Commerce and Industry.—Although grants of land for mining and agricultural purposes are readily made by the state to companies and individual capitalists, the economic development of Honduras has been a very slow process, impeded as it has been by political disturbances and in modern times by national bankruptcy, heavy import and export duties, and the scarcity of both labour and capital. The natural wealth of the country is great and consists especially in its vegetable products. The mahogany and cedar of Honduras are unsurpassed, but reckless destruction of these and of other valuable cabinet-woods and dye-woods has much reduced the supply available for export. Rubber-planting, a comparatively modern industry, has proved successful, and tends to supplement the almost exhausted stock of wild rubber. Of still greater importance are the plantations of bananas, especially in the northern maritime province of Atlantida, where coco-nuts are also grown. Coffee, tobacco, sugar, oranges, lemons, maize and beans are produced in all parts, rice, cocoa, indigo and wheat over more limited areas. Cattle and pigs are bred extensively; cattle are exported to Cuba, and dairy-farming is carried on with success. Sheep-farming is almost an unknown industry. Turtle and fish are obtained in large quantities off the Atlantic seaboard. In its mineral resources Honduras ranks first among the states of Central America. Silver is worked by a British company, gold by an American company. Gold-washing was practised in a primitive manner even before the Spanish conquest, and in the 18th century immense quantities of gold and silver were obtained by the Spaniards from mines near Tegucigalpa. Opals, platinum, copper, lead, zinc, nickel, antimony, iron, lignite and coal have been found but the causes already enumerated have prevented the exploitation of any of these minerals on a large scale, and the total value of the ores exported was only £174,800 in 1904 and £239,426 in 1905. The total value of the exports in a normal year ranges from about £500,000 to £600,000, and that of the imports from £450,000 to £550,000. Apart from minerals the most valuable commodity exported is bananas (£209,263 in 1905); coco-nuts, timber, hides, deer-skins, feathers, coffee, sarsaparilla and rubber are items of minor importance. Nearly 90% of the exports are shipped to the United States, which also send to Honduras more than half of its imports. These chiefly consist of cotton goods, hardware and provisions. The manufacturing industries of Honduras include the plaiting of straw hats, cigar-making, brick-making and the distillation of spirits.

Finance.—Owing to the greater variety of its products and the possession of a metallic currency, Honduras is less affected by fluctuations of exchange than the neighbouring republics, in which little except paper money circulates. The monetary unit is the silver peso or dollar of 100 cents, which weighs 25 grammes, .900 fine, and is worth about 1s. 8d.; the gold dollar is worth about 4s. The principal coins in circulation arc the 1-cent copper piece, 5, 10, 20, 25 and 50 cents, and 1 peso silver pieces, and 1, 5, 10 and 20 dollar gold pieces. The metric system of weights and measures, adopted officially on the 1st of April 1897, has not supplanted the older Spanish standards in general use. There is only one bank in the republic, the Banco de Honduras, with its head office at Tegucigalpa. Its bills are legal tender for all debts due to the state.

In July 1909 the foreign debt of Honduras, with arrears of interest, amounted to £22,470,510, of which more than £17,000,000 were for arrears of interest. The principal was borrowed between 1867 and 1870, chiefly for railway construction; but it was mainly devoted to other purposes and no interest has been paid since 1872. The republic is thus practically bankrupt. The revenue, derived chiefly from customs and from the spirit, gunpowder and tobacco monopolies reached an average of about £265,000 during the five years 1901-1905; the expenditure in normal years is about £250,000. The principal spending departments are those of war, finance, public works and education.

Constitution and Government.—The constitution of Honduras, promulgated in 1839 and frequently amended, was to a great extent recast in 1880. It was again remodelled in 1894, when a new charter was proclaimed. This instrument gives the legislative power to a congress of deputies elected for four years by popular vote, in the ratio of one member for every 10,000 inhabitants. Congress meets on the 1st of January and sits for sixty consecutive days. The executive is entrusted to the president, who is nominated and elected for four years by popular vote, and is re-eligible for a second but not for a third consecutive term. He is assisted by a council of ministers representing the departments of the interior, war, finance, public works, education and justice. For purposes of local administration the republic is divided into sixteen departments. The highest judicial power is vested in the Supreme Court, which consists of five popularly elected judges; there are also four Courts of Appeal, besides subordinate departmental and district tribunals. The active army consists of about 500 regular soldiers and 20,000 militia, recruited by conscription from all able-bodied males between the ages of twenty and thirty. Service in the reserve is obligatory for a further period of ten years.

Religion and Education.—Roman Catholicism is the creed of a very large majority of the population; but the constitution grants complete liberty to all religious communities, and no Church is supported by public funds or receives any other special privilege. Education is free, secular and compulsory for children between the ages of seven and fifteen. There are primary schools in every convenient centre, but the percentage of illiterates is high, especially among the Indians. The state maintains a central institute and a university at Tegucigalpa, a school of jurisprudence at Comayagua, and colleges for secondary education, with special schools for teachers, in each department. The annual cost of primary education is about £11,000.

History.—It was at Cape Honduras that Columbus first landed on the American continent in 1502, and took possession of the country on behalf of Spain. The first settlement was made in 1524 by order of Hernando Cortes, who had heard rumours of rich and populous empires in this region, and sent his lieutenant Christobal de Olid to found a Spanish colony. Olid endeavoured to establish an independent principality, and, in order to resume control of the settlers, Cortes was compelled to undertake the long and arduous march across the mountains of southern Mexico and Guatemala. In the spring of 1525 he reached the colony and founded the city which is now Puerto Cortes. He entrusted the administration to a new governor, whose successors were to be nominated by the king, and returned to Mexico in 1526. By 1539, when Honduras was incorporated in the captaincy-general of Guatemala, the mines of the province had proved to be the richest as yet discovered in the New World and several large cities had come into existence. The system under which Honduras was administered from 1539 to 1821, when it repudiated the authority of the Spanish crown, the effects of that system, the part subsequently played by Honduras in the protracted struggle for Central American unity, and the invasion by William Walker and his fellow-adventurers (1856-1860), are fully described under Central America.

War and revolution had stunted the economic growth of the country and retarded every attempt at social or political reform; its future was mortgaged by the assumption of an enormous burden of debt in 1869 and 1870. A renewal of war with Guatemala in 1871, and a revolution three years later in the interests of the ex-president Medina, brought about the intervention of the neighbouring states and the provisional appointment to the presidency of Marco Aurelio Soto, a nominee of Guatemala. This appointment proved successful and was confirmed by popular vote in 1877 and 1880, when a new constitution was issued and the seat of government fixed at Tegucigalpa. Fresh outbreaks of civil war occurred frequently between 1883 and 1903; the republic was bankrupt and progress again at a standstill. In 1903 Manuel Bonilla, an able, popular and experienced general, gained the presidency and seemed likely to repeat the success of Soto in maintaining order. As his term of office drew to a close, and his re-election appeared certain, the supporters of rival candidates and some of his own dissatisfied adherents intrigued to secure the co-operation of Nicaragua for his overthrow. Bonilla welcomed the opportunity of consolidating his own position which a successful war would offer; José Santos Zelaya, the president of Nicaragua, was equally ambitious; and several alleged violations of territory had embittered popular feeling on both sides. The United States and Mexican governments endeavoured to secure a peaceful settlement without intervention, but failed. At the outbreak of hostilities in February 1907 the Hondurian forces were commanded by Bonilla in person and by General Sotero Barahona his minister of war. One of their chief subordinates was Lee Christmas, an adventurer from Memphis, Tennessee, who had previously been a locomotive-driver. Honduras received active support from his ally, Salvador, and was favoured by public opinion throughout Central America. But from the outset the Nicaraguans proved victorious, largely owing to their remarkable mobility. Their superior naval force enabled them to capture Puerto Cortes and La Ceiba, and to threaten other cities on the Caribbean coast; on land they were aided by a body of Hondurian rebels, who also established a provisional government. Zelaya captured Tegucigalpa after severe fighting, and besieged Bonilla in Amapala. Lee Christmas was killed. The surrender of Amapala on the 11th of April practically ended the war. Bonilla took refuge on board the United States cruiser “Chicago.” A noteworthy feature of the war was the attitude of the American naval officers, who landed marines, arranged the surrender of Amapala, and prevented Nicaragua prolonging hostilities. Honduras was now evacuated by the Nicaraguans and her provisional government was recognized by Zelaya. Miguel R. Davila was president in 1908 and 1909.

Bibliography.—Official documents such as the annual presidential message and the reports of the ministries are published in Spanish at Tegucigalpa. Other periodical publications which throw much light on the movement of trade and politics are the British Foreign Office reports (London, annual), United States consular reports (Washington, monthly), bulletins of the Bureau of American Republics (Washington), and reports of the Council of the Corporation of Foreign Bondholders (London, annual). For a more comprehensive account of the country and its history, the works of K. Sapper, E. G. Squier, A. H. Keane and T. Child, cited under Central America, are important. See also E. Pelletier, Honduras et ses ports: documents officiels sur le chemin-de-fer interocéanique (Paris, 1869); E. G. Squier, Honduras: Descriptive, Historical and Statistical (London, 1870); C. Charles, Honduras (Chicago, 1890); Handbook of Honduras, published by the Bureau of American Republics (1892); T. R. Lombard, The New Honduras (New York, 1887); H. Jalhay, La République de Honduras (Antwerp, 1898); Perry, Directorio nacional de Honduras (New York, 1899); H. G. Bourgeois, Breve noticia sobre Honduras (Tegucigalpa, 1900).

HONE, NATHANIEL (1718-1784), British painter, was the son of a merchant at Dublin, and without any regular training acquired in his youth much skill as a portrait-painter. Early in his career he left Dublin for England and worked first in various provincial towns, but ultimately settled in London, where he soon made a considerable reputation. His oil-paintings were decidedly popular, but he gained his chief success by his miniatures and enamels, which he executed with masterly capacity. He became a member of the Incorporated Society of Artists and afterwards a foundation member of the Royal Academy; but he had several disagreements with his fellow-members of that institution, and on one occasion they rejected two of his pictures, one of which was regarded as a satire on Reynolds and the other on Angelica Kauffman. Most of his contributions to the Academy exhibitions were portraits. The quality of his work varied greatly, but the merit of his miniatures and enamels entitles him to a place among the ablest artists of the British school. He executed also a few mezzotint plates of reasonable importance, and some etchings. His portrait, painted by himself two years before his death, is in the possession of the Royal Academy.

HONE, WILLIAM (1780-1842), English writer and bookseller, was born at Bath on the 3rd of June 1780. His father brought up his children with the sectarian narrowness that so frequently produces reaction. Hone received no systematic education, and was taught to read from the Bible only. His father having removed to London in 1783, he was in 1790 placed in an attorney’s office. After two and a half years spent in the office of a solicitor at Chatham he returned to London to become clerk to a solicitor in Gray’s Inn. But he disliked the law, and had already acquired a taste for free-thought and political agitation. Hone married in 1800, and started a book and print shop with a circulating Library in Lambeth Walk. He soon removed to St Martin’s Churchyard, where he brought out his first publication, Shaw’s Gardener (1806). It was at this time that he and his friend, John Bone, tried to realize a plan for the establishment of popular savings banks, and even had an interview on the subject with the president of the Board of Trade. This scheme, however, failed. Bone joined him next in a bookseller’s business; but Hone’s habits were not those of a tradesman, and bankruptcy was the result. He was in 1811 chosen by the booksellers as auctioneer to the trade, and had an office in Ivy Lane. Independent investigations carried on by him into the condition of lunatic asylums led again to business difficulties and failure, but he took a small lodging in the Old Bailey, keeping himself and his now large family by contributions to magazines and reviews. He hired a small shop, or rather box, in Fleet Street but this was on two separate nights broken into, and valuable books lent for show were stolen. In 1815 he started the Traveller newspaper, and endeavoured vainly to exculpate Eliza Fenning, a poor girl, apparently quite guiltless, who was executed on a charge of poisoning. From February 1 to October 25, 1817, he published the Reformer’s Register, writing in it as the serious critic of the state abuses, which he soon after attacked in the famous political squibs and parodies, illustrated by George Cruikshank. In April 1817 three ex-officio informations were filed against him by the attorney-genera, Sir William Garrow. Three separate trials took place in the Guildhall before special juries on the 18th, 19th and 20th of December 1817. The first, for publishing Wilkes’s Catechism of a Ministerial Member (1817), was before Mr Justice Abbot (afterwards Lord Tenterden); the second, for parodying the litany and libelling the prince regent, and the third, for publishing the Sinecurist’s Creed (1817), a parody on the Athanasian creed, were before Lord Ellenborough (q.v.). The prosecution took the ground that the prints were calculated to injure public morals, and to bring the prayer-book and even religion itself into contempt. But there can be no doubt that the real motives of the prosecution were political; Hone had ridiculed the habits and exposed the corruption of the prince regent and of other persons in power. He went to the root of the matter when he wished the jury “to understand that, had he been a publisher of ministerial parodies, he would not then have been defending himself on the floor of that court.” In spite of illness and exhaustion Hone displayed great courage and ability, speaking on each of the three days for about seven hours. Although his judges were biassed against him he was acquitted on each count, and the result was received with enthusiastic cheers by immense crowds within and without the court. Soon after the trials a subscription was begun which enabled Hone to get over the difficulties caused by his prosecution. Among Hone’s most successful political satires were The Political House that Jack built (1819), The Queen’s Matrimonial Ladder (1820), in favour of Queen Caroline, The Man in the Moon (1820), The Political Showman (1821), all illustrated by Cruikshank. Many of his squibs are directed against a certain “Dr Slop,” a nickname given by him to Dr (afterwards Sir John) Stoddart, of The Times. In researches for his defence he had come upon some curious and at that time little trodden literary ground, and the results were shown by his publication in 1820 of his Apocryphal New Testament, and in 1823 of his Ancient Mysteries Explained. In 1826 he published the Every-day Book, in 1827-1828 the Table-Book, and in 1829 the Year-Book; all three were collections of curious information on manners, antiquities and various other subjects. These are the works by which Hone is best remembered. In preparing them he had the approval of Southey and the assistance of Charles Lamb, but pecuniarily they were not successful, and Hone was lodged in King’s Bench prison for debt. Friends, however, again came to his assistance, and he was established in a coffee-house in Gracechurch Street; but this, like most of his enterprises, ended in failure. Hone’s attitude of mind had gradually changed to that of extreme devoutness, and during the latter years of his life he frequently preached in Weigh House Chapel, Eastcheap. In 1830 he edited Strutt’s Sports and Pastimes, and he contributed to the first number of the Penny Magazine. He was also for some years sub-editor of the Patriot. He died at Tottenham on the 6th of November 1842.

HONE (in O. Eng. hán, cognate with Swed. hen; the root appears in Skt. çána, ço to sharpen), a variety of finely siliceous stone employed for whetting or sharpening edge tools, and for abrading steel and other hard surfaces. Synonyms are honestone, whetstone, oilstone and sharpening stone. Hones are generally prepared in the form of flat slabs or small pencils or rods, but some are made with the outline of the special instrument they are designed to sharpen. Their abrading action is due to the quartz or silica which is always present in predominating proportion, some kinds consisting of almost pure quartz, while in others the siliceous element is very intimately mixed with aluminous or calcareous matter, forming a uniform compact stone, the extremely fine siliceous particles of which impart a remarkably keen edge to the instruments for the sharpening of which they are applied. In some cases the presence of minute garnets or magnetite assists in the cutting action. Hones are used either dry, with water, or with oil, and generally the object to be sharpened is drawn with hand pressure backward and forward over the surface of the hone; but sometimes the stone is moved over the cutting edge.

The coarsest type of stone which can be included among hones is the bat or scythe stone, a porous fine-grained sandstone used for sharpening scythes and cutters of mowing machines, and for other like purposes. Next come the ragstones, which consist of quartzose mica-schist, and give a finer edge than any sandstone. Under the head of oilstones or hones proper the most famous and best-known qualities are the German razor hone, the Turkey oilstone, and the Arkansas stone. The German razor hone, used, as its name implies, chiefly for razors, is obtained from the slate mountains near Ratisbon, where it forms a yellow vein of from 1 to 18 in. in the blue slate. It is sawn into thin slabs, and these are cemented to slabs of slate which serve as a support. Turkey oilstone is a close-grained bluish stone containing from 70 to 75% of silica in a state of very fine division, intimately blended with about 20 to 25% of calcite. It is obtained only in small pieces, frequently flawed and not tough, so that the slabs must have a backing of slate or wood. It is one of the most valuable of all whetstones, abrading the hardest steel, and possessing sufficient compactness to resist the pressure required for sharpening gravers. The stone comes from the interior of Asia Minor, whence it is carried to Smyrna. Of Arkansas stones there are two varieties, both found in the same district, Garland and Saline counties, Arkansas, United States. The finer kind, known as Arkansas hone, is obtained in small pieces at the Hot Springs, and the second quality, distinguished as Washita stone, comes from Washita or Ouachita river. The hones yield on analysis 98% of silica, with small proportions of alumina, potash and soda, and mere traces of iron, lime, magnesia and fluorine. They are white in colour, extremely hard and keen in grit, and not easily worn down or broken. Geologically the materials are called novaculites, and are supposed to be metamorphosed sandstone silt, chert or limestone resulting from the permeation through the mass of heated alkaline siliceous waters. The finer kind is employed for fine cutting instruments, and also for polishing steel pivots of watch-wheels and similar minute work, the second and coarser quality being used for common tools. Both varieties are largely exported from the United States in the form of blocks, slips, pencils, rods and wheels. Other honestones are obtained in the United States from New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, Ohio (Deerlick stone) and Indiana (Hindostan or Orange stone). Among hones of less importance in general use may be noted the Charley Forest stone—or Whittle Hill honestone—a good substitute for Turkey oilstone; Water of Ayr stone, Scotch stone, or snake stone, a pale grey carboniferous shale hardened by igneous action, used for tools and for polishing marble and copper-plates; Idwal or Welsh oilstone, used for small articles; and cutlers’ greenstone from Snowdon, very hard and close in texture, used for giving the last edge to lancets.

HONEY (Chin. mē; Sansk. madhu, mead, honey; cf. A.S. medo, medu, mead; Gr. μέλι, in which θ or δ is changed into λ; Lat. mel; Fr. miel; A.S. hunig; Ger. Honig),1 a sweet viscid liquid, obtained by bees (see Bee, Bee-keeping) chiefly from the nectaries of flowers, i.e. those parts of flowers specially constructed for the elaboration of honey, and, after transportation to the hive in the proventriculus or crop of the insects, discharged by them into the cells prepared for its reception. Whether the nectar undergoes any alteration within the crop of the bee is a point on which authors have differed. Some wasps, e.g. Myrapetra scutellaris2 and the genus Nectarina, collect honey. A honey-like fluid, which consists of a nearly pure solution of uncrystallizable sugar having the formula C6H14O7 after drying in vacuo, and which is used by the Mexicans in the preparation of a beverage, is yielded by certain inactive individuals of Myrmecocystus mexicanus, Wesmael, the honey-ants or pouched ants (hormigas mieleras or mochileras) of Mexico.3 The abdomen in these insects, owing to the distensibility of the membrane connecting its segments, becomes converted into a globular thin-walled sac by the accumulation within it of the nectar supplied to them by their working comrades (Wesmael, Bull. de l’Acad. Roy. de Brux. v. 766, 1838). By the Rev. H. C. M‘Cook, who discovered the insect in the Garden of the Gods, Colorado, the honey-bearers were found hanging by their feet, in groups of about thirty, to the roofs of special chambers in their underground nests, their large globular abdomens causing them to resemble “bunches of small Delaware grapes” (Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philad., 1879, p. 197). A bladder-like formation on the metathorax of another ant, Crematogaster inflatus (F. Smith, Cat. of Hymenoptera, pt. vi. pp. 136 and 200, pl. ix. fig. 1), which has a small circular orifice at each posterior lateral angle, appears to possess a function similar to that of the abdomen in the honey-ant.

It is a popular saying that where is the best honey there also is the best wool; and a pastoral district, since it affords a greater profusion of flowers, is superior for the production of honey to one under tillage.4 Dry warm weather is that most favourable to the secretion of nectar by flowers. This they protect from rain by various internal structures, such as papillae, cushions of hairs and spurs, or by virtue of their position (in the raspberry, drooping), or the arrangement of their constituent parts. Dr A. W. Bennett (How Flowers are Fertilized, p. 31, 1873) has remarked that the perfume of flowers is generally derived from their nectar; the blossoms of some plants, however, as ivy and holly, though almost scentless, are highly nectariferous. The exudation of a honey-like or saccharine fluid, as has frequently been attested, is not a function exclusively of the flowers in all plants. A sweet material, the manna of pharmacy, e.g. is produced by the leaves and stems of a species of ash, Fraxinus Ornus; and honey-secreting glands are to be met with on the leaves, petioles, phyllodes, stipules (as in Vicia sativa), or bracteae (as in the Maregraviaceae) of a considerable number of different vegetable forms. The origin of the honey-yielding properties manifested specially by flowers among the several parts of plants has been carefully considered by Darwin, who regards the saccharine matter in nectar as a waste product of chemical changes in the sap, which, when it happened to be excreted within the envelopes of flowers, was utilized for the important object of cross-fertilization, and subsequently was much increased in quantity, and stored in various ways (see Cross and Self Fertilization of Plants, pp. 402 sq., 1876). It has been noted with respect to the nectar of the fuchsia that it is most abundant when the anthers are about to dehisce, and absent in the unexpanded flower.

Pettigrew is of opinion that few bees go more than 2 m. from home in search of honey. The number of blossoms visited in order to meet the requirements of a single hive of bees must be very great; for it has been found by A. S. Wilson (“On the Nectar of Flowers,” Brit. Assoc. Rep., 1878, p. 567) that 125 heads of common red clover, which is a plant comparatively abundant in nectar, yield but one gramme (15.432 grains) of sugar; and as each head contains about 60 florets, 7,500,000 distinct flower-tubes must on this estimate be exhausted for each kilogramme (2.204 ℔) of sugar collected. Among the richer sources of honey are reckoned the apple, asparagus, asters, barberry, basswood (Tilia americana), and the European lime or linden (T. europaea), beans, bonesets (Eupatorium), borage, broom, buckwheat, catnip, or catmint (Nepeta Cataria), cherry, cleome, clover, cotton, crocus, currant, dandelion, eucalyptus, figwort (Scrophularia), furze, golden-rod (Solidago), gooseberry, hawthorn, heather, hepatica, horehound, hyacinth, lucerne, maple, mignonette, mint, motherwort (Leonurus), mustard, onion, peach, pear, poplar, quince, rape, raspberry, sage, silver maple, snapdragon, sour-wood (Oxydendron arboreum, D.C.), strawberry, sycamore, teasel, thyme, tulip-tree (more especially rich in pollen), turnip, violet and willows, and the “honey-dew” of the leaves of the whitethorn (Bonner), oak, linden, beech and some other trees.

Honey contains dextroglucose and laevoglucose (the former practically insoluble, the latter soluble in 1⁄8 pt. of cold strong alcohol), cane-sugar (according to some), mucilage, water, wax, essential oil, colouring bodies, a minute quantity of mineral matter and pollen. By a species of fermentation, the cane-sugar is said to be gradually transformed into inverted sugar (laevoglucose with dextroglucose). The pollen, as a source of nitrogen, is of importance to the bees feeding on the honey. It may be obtained for examination as a sediment from a mixture of honey and water. Other substances which have been discovered in honey are mannite (Guibourt), a free acid which precipitates the salts of silver and of lead, and is soluble in water and alcohol (Calloux), and an uncrystallizable sugar, nearly related to inverted sugar (Soubeiran, Compt. Rend. xxviii. 774-775, 1849). Brittany honey contains couvain, a ferment which determines its active decomposition (Wurtz, Dict. de Chem. ii. 430). In the honey of Polybia apicipennis, a wasp of tropical America, cane-sugar occurs in crystals of large size (Karsten, Pogg. Ann., C. 550). Dr J. Campbell Brown (“On the Composition of Honey,” Analyst iii. 267, 1878) is doubtful as to the presence of cane-sugar in any one of nine samples, from various sources, examined by him. The following average percentage numbers are afforded by his analyses: laevulose, 36.45; dextrose, 36.57; mineral matter, .15; water expelled at 100° C., 18.5, and at a much higher temperature, with loss, 7.81: the wax, pollen and insoluble matter vary from a trace to 2.1%. The specific gravity of honey is about 1.41. The rotation of a polarized ray by a solution of 16.26 grammes of crude honey in 100 c.c. of water is generally from −3.2° to −5° at 60° F.; in the case of Greek honey it is nearly −5.5°. Almost all pure honey, when exposed for some time to light and cold, becomes more or less granular in consistency. Any liquid portion can be readily separated by straining through linen. Honey sold out of the comb is commonly clarified by heating and skimmimg; but according to Bonner it is always best in its natural state. The mel depuratum of British pharmacy is prepared by heating honey in a water-bath, and straining through flannel previously moistened with warm water.

The term “virgin-honey” (A.-S., hunigtear) is applied to the honey of young bees which have never swarmed, or to that which flows spontaneously from honeycomb with or without the application of heat. The honey obtained from old hives, considered inferior to it in quality, is ordinarily darker, thicker and less pleasant in taste and odour. The yield of honey is less in proportion to weight in old than in young or virgin combs. The far-famed honey of Narbonne is white, very granular and highly aromatic; and still finer honey is that procured from the Corbières Mountains, 6 to 9 m. to the south-west. The honey of Gâtinais is usually white, and is less odorous and granulates less readily than that of Narbonne. Honey from white clover has a greenish-white, and that from heather a rich golden-yellow hue. What is made from honey-dew is dark in colour, and disagreeable to the palate, and does not candy like good honey. “We have seen aphide honey from sycamores,” says F. Cheshire (Pract. Bee-keeping, p. 74), “as deep in tone as walnut liquor, and where much of it is stored the value of the whole crop is practically nil.” The honey of the stingless bees (Meliponia and Trigona) of Brazil varies greatly in quality according to the species of flowers from which it is collected, some kinds being black and sour, and others excellent (F. Smith, Trans. Ent. Soc., 3d ser., i. pt. vi., 1863). That of Apis Peronii, of India and Timor, is yellow, and of very agreeable flavour and is more liquid than the British sorts. A. unicolor, a bee indigenous to Madagascar, and naturalized in Mauritius and the island of Réunion, furnishes a thick and syrupy, peculiarly scented green honey, highly esteemed in Western India. A rose-coloured honey is stated (Gard. Chron., 1870, p. 1698) to have been procured by artificial feeding. The fine aroma of Maltese honey is due to its collection from orange blossoms. Narbonne honey being harvested chiefly from Labiate plants, as rosemary, an imitation of it is sometimes prepared by flavouring ordinary honey with infusion of rosemary flowers.

Adulterations of honey are starch, detectable by the microscope, and by its blue reaction with iodine, also wheaten flour, gelatin, chalk, gypsum, pipe-clay, added water, cane-sugar and common syrup, and the different varieties of manufactured glucose. Honey sophisticated with glucose containing copperas as an impurity is turned of an inky colour by liquids containing tannin, as tea. Elm leaves have been used in America for the flavouring of imitation honey. Stone jars should be employed in preference to common earthenware for the storage of honey, which acts upon the lead glaze of the latter.

Honey is mildly laxative in properties. Some few kinds are poisonous, as frequently the reddish honey stored by the Brazilian wasp Nectarina (Polistes, Latr.5) Lecheguana, Shuck., the effects of which have been vividly described by Aug. de Saint-Hilaire,6 the spring honey of the wild bees of East Nepaul, said to be rendered noxious by collection from rhododendron flowers (Hooker, Himalayan Journals, i. 190, ed. 1855), and the honey of Trebizond, which from its source, the blossoms, it is stated, of Azalea pontica and Rhododendron ponticum (perhaps to be identified with Pliny’s Aegolethron), acquires the qualities of an irritant and intoxicant narcotic, as described by Xenophon (Anab. iv. 8). Pliny (Nat. Hist. xxi. 45) describes as noxious a livid-coloured honey found in Persia and Gaetulia. Honey obtained from Kalmia latifolia, L., the calico bush, mountain laurel or spoon-wood of the northern United States, and allied species, is reputed deleterious; also that of the sour-wood is by some good authorities considered to possess undeniable griping properties; and G. Bidie (Madras Quart. Journ. Med. Sci., Oct, 1861, p. 399) mentions urtication, headache, extreme prostration and nausea, and intense thirst among the symptoms produced by a small quantity only of a honey from Coorg jungle. A South African species of Euphorbia, as was experienced by the missionary Moffat (Miss. Lab. p. 32, 1849), yields a poisonous honey. The nectar of certain flowers is asserted to cause even in bees a fatal kind of vertigo. As a demulcent and flavouring agent, honey is employed in the oxymel, oxymel scillae, mel boracis, confectio piperis, conf. scammonii and conf. terebinthinae of the British Pharmacopoeia. To the ancients honey was of very great importance as an article of diet, being almost their only available source of sugar. It was valued by them also for its medicinal virtues; and in recipes of the Saxon and later periods it is a common ingredient.7 Of the eight kinds of honey mentioned by the great Indian surgical writer Susruta, four are not described by recent authors, viz. argha or wild honey, collected by a sort of yellow bee; chhatra, made by tawny or yellow wasps; audálaka, a bitter and acrid honey-like substance found in the nest of white ants; and dála or unprepared honey occurring on flowers. According to Hindu medical writers, honey when new is laxative, and when more than a year old astringent (U. C. Dutt, Mat. Med. of the Hindus, p. 277, 1877). Ceromel, formed by mixing at a gentle heat one part by weight of yellow wax with four of clarified honey, and straining, is used in India and other tropical countries as a mild stimulant for ulcers in the place of animal fats, which there rapidly become rancid and unfit for medicinal purposes. The Koran, in the chapter entitled “The Bee,” remarks with reference to bees and their honey: “There proceedeth from their bellies a liquor of various colour, wherein is a medicine for men” (Sale’s Koran, chap. xvi.). Pills prepared with honey as an excipient are said to remain unindurated, however long they may be kept (Med. Times, 1857, i. 269). Mead, of yore a favourite beverage in England (vol. iv. p. 264), is made by fermentation of the liquor obtained by boiling in water combs from which the honey has been drained. In the preparation of sack-mead, an ounce of hops is added to each gallon of the liquor, and after the fermentation a small quantity of brandy. Metheglin, or hydromel, is maufactured by fermenting with yeast a solution of honey flavoured with boiled hops (see Cooley, Cyclop.). A kind of mead is largely consumed in Abyssinia (vol. i. p. 64), where it is carried on journeys in large horns (Stern, Wanderings, p. 317, 1862). In Russia a drink termed lipez is made from the delicious honey of the linden. The mulsum of the ancient Romans consisted of honey, wine and water boiled together. The clarre, or piment, of Chaucer’s time was wine mixed with honey and spices, and strained till clear; a similar drink was bracket, made with wort of ale instead of wine. L. Maurial (L’Insectologie Agricole for 1868, p. 206) reports unfavourably as to the use of honey for the production of alcohol; he recommends it, however, as superior to sugar for the thickening of liqueurs, and also as a means of sweetening imperfectly ripened vintages. It is occasionally employed for giving strength and flavour to ale. In ancient Egypt it was valued as an embalming material; and in the East, for the preservation of fruit, and the making of cakes, sweetmeats, and other articles of food, it is largely consumed. Grafts, seeds and birds’ eggs, for transmission to great distances, are sometimes packed in honey. In India a mixture of honey and milk, or of equal parts of curds, honey and clarified butter (Sansk., madhu-parka), is a respectful offering to a guest, or to a bridegroom on his arrival at the door of the bride’s father; and one of the purificatory ceremonies of the Hindus (Sansk., madhu-prāsana) is the placing of a little honey in the mouth of a newborn male infant. Honey is frequently alluded to by the writers of antiquity as food for children; it is not to this, however, as already mentioned, that Isa. vii. 15 refers. Cream or fresh butter together with honey, and with or without bread, is a favourite dish with the Arabs.

Among the observances at the Fandròana or New Year’s Festival, in Madagascar, is the eating of mingled rice and honey by the queen and her guests; in the same country honey is placed in the sacred water of sprinkling used at the blessing of the children previous to circumcision (Sibree, The Great African Is. pp. 219, 314, 1880). Honey was frequently employed in the ancient religious ceremonies of the heathen, but was forbidden as a sacrifice in the Jewish ritual (Lev. ii. 11). With milk or water it was presented by the Greeks as a libation to the dead (Odyss. xi. 27; Eurip. Orest. 115). A honey-cake was the monthly food of the fabled serpent-guardian of the Acropolis (Herod, viii. 41). By the aborigines of Peru honey was offered to the sun.

The Hebrew word translated “honey” in the authorized version of the English Bible is debash, practically synonymous with which are ja’ar or ja’arith had-debash (1 Sam. xix. 25-27; cf. Cant. v. 1) and nopheth (Ps. xix. 10, &c.), rendered “honey-comb.” Debash denotes bee-honey (as in Deut. xxxii. 13 and Jud. xiv. 8); the manna of trees, by some writers considered to have been the “wild honey” eaten by John the Baptist (Matt. iii. 4); the syrup of dates or the fruits themselves; and probably in some passages (as Gen. xliii. 11 and Ez. xxvii. 17) the syrupy boiled juice of the grape, resembling thin molasses, in use in Palestine, especially at Hebron, under the name of dibs (see Kitto, Cyclop., and E. Robinson, Bibl. Res. ii. 81). Josephus (B.J., iv. 8, 3) speaks highly of a honey produced at Jericho, consisting of the expressed juice of the fruit of palm trees; and Herodotus (iv. 194) mentions a similar preparation made by the Gyzantians in North Africa, where it is still in use. The honey most esteemed by the ancients was that of Mount Hybla in Sicily, and of Mount Hymettus in Attica (iii. 59). Mahaffy (Rambles in Greece, p. 148, 2nd ed., 1878) describes the honey of Hymettus as by no means so good as the produce of other parts of Greece—not to say of the heather hills of Scotland and Ireland. That of Thebes, and more especially that of Corinth, which is made in the thymy hills towards Cleonae, he found much better (cf. xi. 88). Honey and wax, still largely obtained in Corsica (vi. 440), were in olden times the chief productions of the island. In England, in the 13th and 14th centuries, honey sold at from about 7d. to 1s. 2d. a gallon, and occasionally was disposed of by the swarm or hive, or ruscha (Rogers, Hist. of Agric. and Prices in Eng., 1. 418). At Wrexham, Denbigh, Wales, two honey fairs are annually held, one on the Thursday next after the 1st of September, and the other—the more recently instituted and by far the larger—on the Thursday following the first Wednesday in October. In Hungary the amounts of honey and of wax are in favourable years respectively about 190,000 and 12,000 cwt., and in unfavourable years, as, e.g. 1874, about 12,000 and 3000 cwt. The hives there in 1870 numbered 617,407 (or 40 per 1000 of the population, against 45 in Austria). Of these 365,711 were in Hungary Proper, and 91,348 (87 per 1000 persons) in the Military Frontier (Keleti, Übersicht der Bevölk. Ungarns, 1871; Schwicker, Statistik d. K. Ungarn, 1877). In Poland the system of bee-keeping introduced by Dolinowski has been found to afford an average of 40 ℔ of honey and wax and two new swarms per hive, the common peasant’s hive yielding, with two swarms, only 3 ℔ of honey and wax. In forests and places remote from villages in Podolia and parts of Volhynia, as many as 1000 hives may be seen in one apiary. In the district of Ostrolenka, in the government of Plock, and in the woody region of Polesia, in Lithuania, a method is practised of rearing bees in excavated trunks of trees (Stanton, “On the Treatment of Bees in Poland,” Technologist, vi. 45, 1866). When, in August, in the loftier valleys of Bormio, Italy, flowering ceases, the bees in their wooden hives are by means of spring-carts transported at night to lower regions, where they obtain from the buckwheat crops the inferior honey which serves them for winter consumption (Ib. p. 38).

In Palestine, “the land flowing with milk and honey”8 (Ex. iii. 17; Numb. xiii. 27), wild bees are very numerous, especially in the wilderness of Judaea, and the selling of their produce, obtained from crevices in rocks, hollows in trees and elsewhere, is with many of the inhabitants a means of subsistence. Commenting on 1 Sam. xiv. 26, J. Roberts (Oriental Illust.) remarks that in the East “the forests literally flow with honey; large combs may be seen hanging on the trees, as you pass along, full of honey.” In Galilee, and at Bethlehem and other places in Palestine, bee-keeping is extensively carried on. The hives are sun-burnt tubes of mud, about 4 ft. in length and 8 in. in diameter, and, with the exception of a small central aperture for the passage of the bees, closed at each end with mud. These are laid together in long rows, or piled pyramidally, and are protected from the sun by a covering of mud and of boughs. The honey is extracted, when the ends have been removed, by means of an iron hook. (See Tristram, Nat. Hist. of the Bible, pp. 322 sqq., 2nd ed., 1868). Apiculture in Turkey is in a very rude condition. The Bali-dagh, or “Honey Mount,” in the plain of Troy, is so called on account of the numerous wild bees tenanting the caves in its precipitous rocks to the south. In various regions of Africa, as on the west, near the Gambia, bees abound. Cameron was informed by his guides that the large quantities of honey at the cliffs by the river Makanyazi were under the protection of an evil spirit, and not one of his men could be persuaded to gather any (Across Africa, i. 266). On the precipitous slopes of the Teesta valley, in India, the procuring of honey from the pendulous bees’-nests, which are sometimes large enough to be conspicuous features at a mile’s distance, is the only means by which the idle poor raise their annual rent (Hooker, Him. Journ. ii. 41).

To reach the large combs of Apis dorsata and A. testacea, the natives of Timor, by whom both the honey and young bees are esteemed delicacies, ascend the trunks of lofty forest trees by the use of a loop of creeper. Protected from the myriads of angry insects by a small torch only, they detach the combs from the under surface of the branches, and lower them by slender cords to the ground (Wallace, Journ. Linn. Soc., Zool., vol. xi.).

(F. H. B.)

1 The term honey in its various forms is peculiar to the Teutonic group of languages, and in the Gothic New Testament is wanting, the Greek word being there translated melith.

2 See A. White, in Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist. vii. 315, pl. 4.

3 Wetherill (Chem. Gaz. xi. 72, 1853) calculates that the average weight of the honey is 8.2 times that of the body of the ant, or 0.3942 grammes.

4 Compare Isa. vii. 15, 22, where curdled milk (A.V. “butter”) and honey as exclusive articles of diet are indicative of foreign invasion, which turns rich agricultural districts into pasture lands or uncultivated wastes.

5 Mémoires du Muséum, xi. 313 (1824).

6 Ib. xii. 293, pl. xii. fig. B (1825). The honey, according to Lassaigne (ib. ix. 319), is almost entirely soluble in alcohol.

7 For a list of fifteen treatises concerning honey, dating from 1625 to 1868, see Waring, Bibl. Therap. ii. 559, New Syd. Soc. (1879). On sundry ancient uses for honey, see Beckmann, Hist. of Invent. i. 287 (1846).

8 In Sanskrit, madhu-kulyā, a stream of honey, is sometimes used to express an overflowing abundance of good things (Monier Williams, Sansk.-Eng. Dict., p. 736, 1872).

HONEYCOMB, a cloth, so called because of the particular arrangement of the crossing of the warp and weft threads which form cells somewhat similar to those of the real honeycomb. They differ from the latter in that they are rectangular instead of hexagonal. The bottom of the cell is formed by those threads and picks which weave “plain,” while the ascending sides of the figure are formed by the gradually increasing length of float of the warp and weft yarns.

The figure shows two of the commonest designs which are used for these cloths, design A being what is often termed the “perfect honeycomb”; in the figure it will be seen that the highest number of successive white squares is seven, while the corresponding highest number of successive black squares is five. Two of each of these maximum floats form the top or highest edges of the cell, and the number of successive like squares decreases as the bottom of the cell is reached when the floats are one of black and one of white (see middle of design, &c.). The weave produces a reversible cloth, and it is extensively used for the embellishment of quilts and other fancy goods. It is also largely used in the manufacture of cotton and linen towels. B is, for certain purposes, a more suitable weave than A, but both are very largely used for the latter class of goods.

HONEY-EATER, or Honey-sucker, names applied by many writers in a very loose way to a large number of birds, some of which, perhaps, have no intimate affinity; here they are used in a more restricted sense for what, in the opinion of a good many recent authorities,1 should really be deemed the family Meliphagidae—excluding therefrom the Nectariniidae or Sun-birds (q.v.) as well as the genera Promerops and Zosterops with whatever allies they may possess. Even with this restriction, the extent of the family must be regarded as very indefinite, owing to the absence of materials sufficient for arriving at a satisfactory conclusion, though the existence of such a family is probably indisputable. Making allowance, then, for the imperfect light in which they must at present be viewed, what are here called Meliphagidae include some of the most characteristic forms of the ornithology of the great Australian region—members of the family inhabiting almost every part of it, and a single species only, Ptilotis limbata, being said to occur outside its limits. They all possess, or are supposed to possess, a long protrusible tongue with a brush-like tip, differing, it is believed, in structure from that found in any other bird—Promerops perhaps excepted—and capable of being formed into a suctorial tube, by means of which honey is absorbed from the nectary of flowers, though it would seem that insects attracted by the honey furnish the chief nourishment of many species, while others undoubtedly feed to a greater or less extent on fruits. The Meliphagidae, as now considered, are for the most part small birds, never exceeding the size of a missel thrush; and they have been divided into more than 20 genera, containing above 200 species, of which only a few can here be particularized. Most of these species have a very confined range, being found perhaps only on a single island or group of islands in the region, but there are a few which are more widely distributed—such as Glycyphila rufifrons, the white-throated2 honey-eater, found over the greater part of Australia and Tasmania. In plumage they vary much. Most of the species of Ptilotis are characterized by a tuft of white, or in others of yellow, feathers springing from behind the ear. In the greater number of the genus Myzomela3 the males are recognizable by a gorgeous display of crimson or scarlet, which has caused one species, M. sanguinolenta, to be known as the soldier-bird to Australian colonists; but in others no brilliant colour appears, and those of several genera have no special ornamentation, while some have a particularly plain appearance. One of the most curious forms is Prosthemadera—the tui or parson-bird of New Zealand, so called from the two tufts of white feathers which hang beneath its chin in great contrast to its dark silky plumage, and suggest a likeness to the bands worn by ministers of several religious denominations when officiating.4 The bell-bird of the same island, Anthornis melanura—whose melody excited the admiration of Cook the morning after he had anchored in Queen Charlotte’s Sound—is another member of this family, and unfortunately seems to be fast becoming extinct. But it would be impossible here to enter much further into detail, though the wattle-birds, Anthochaera, of Australia have at least to be named. Mention, however, must be made of the friar-birds, Tropidorhynchus, of which nearly a score of species, five of them belonging to Australia, have been described. With their stout bills, mostly surmounted by an excrescence, they seem to be the most abnormal forms of the family, and most of them are besides remarkable for the baldness of some part at least of their head. They assemble in troops, sitting on dead trees, with a loud call, and are very pugnacious, frequently driving away hawks and crows. A. R. Wallace (Malay Archipelago, ii. 150-153) discovered the curious fact that two species of this genus—T. bourensis and T. subcornutus—respectively inhabiting the islands of Bouru and Ceram, were the object of natural “mimicry” on the part of two species of oriole of the genus Mimeta, M. bourouensis and M. forsteni, inhabiting the same islands, so as to be on a superficial examination identical in appearance—the honey-eater and the oriole of each island presenting exactly the same tints—the black patch of bare skin round the eyes of the former, for instance, being copied in the latter by a patch of black feathers, and even the protuberance on the beak of the Tropidorhynchus being imitated by a similar enlargement of the beak of the Mimeta. The very reasonable explanation which Wallace offers is that the pugnacity of the former has led the smaller birds of prey to respect it, and it is therefore an advantage for the latter, being weaker and less courageous, to be mistaken for it.

(A. N.)

1 Among them especially A. R. Wallace, Geogr. Distr. Animals, ii 275.

2 The young of this species has the throat yellow.

3 W. A. Forbes published a careful monograph of this genus in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society for 1879, pp. 256-279.

4 This bird, according to Sir Walter Buller (Birds of New Zealand, p. 88), while uttering its wild notes, indulges in much gesticulation, which adds to the suggested resemblance. It has great power of mimicry, and is a favourite cage-bird both with the natives and colonists. On one occasion, says Buller, he had addressed a large meeting of Maories on a matter of considerable political importance, when “immediately on the conclusion of my speech, and before the old chief to whom my arguments were chiefly addressed had time to reply, a tui, whose netted cage hung to a rafter overhead, responded in a clear, emphatic way, ‘Tito!’ (false). The circumstance naturally caused much merriment among my audience, and quite upset the gravity of the venerable old chief, Nepia Taratoa. ‘Friend,’ said he, laughing, ‘your arguments are very good; but my mokai is a very wise bird, and he is not yet convinced!’”

HONEY-GUIDE, a bird so called from its habit of pointing out to man and to the ratel (Mellivora capensis) the nests of bees. Stories to this effect have been often told, and may be found in the narratives of many African travellers, from Bruce to Livingstone. But Layard says (B. South Africa, p. 242) that the birds will not infrequently lead any one to a leopard or a snake, and will follow a dog with vociferations, though its noisy cry and antics unquestionably have in many cases the effect signified by its English name. If not its first discoverer, Sparrman, in 1777, was the first who described and figured this bird, which he met with in the Cape Colony (Phil. Trans., lxvii. 42-47, pl. i.), giving it the name of Culculus indicator, its zygodactylous feet with the toes placed in pairs—two before and two behind—inducing the belief that it must be referred to that genus. Vicillot in 1816 elevated it to the rank of a genus, Indicator; but it was still considered to belong to the family Cuculidae (its asserted parasitical habits lending force to that belief) by all systematists except Blyth and Jerdon, until it was shown by Blanford (Obs. Geol. and Zool. Abyssinia, pp. 308, 309) and Sclater (Ibis, 1870, pp. 176-180) that it was more allied to the barbets, Capitonidae, and, in consequence, was then made the type of a distinct family, Indicatoridae. In the meanwhile other species had been discovered, some of them differing sufficiently to warrant Sundevall’s foundation of a second genus, Prodotiscus, of the group. The honey-guides are small birds, the largest hardly exceeding a lark in size, and of plain plumage, with what appears to be a very sparrow-like bill. Bowdler Sharpe, in a revision of the family published in 1876 (Orn. Miscellany, i. 192-209), recognizes ten species of the genus Indicator, to which another was added by Dr Reichenow (Journ. für Ornithologie, 1877, p. 110), and two of Prodotiscus. Four species of the former, including I. sparrmani, which was the first made known, are found in South Africa, and one of the latter. The rest inhabit other parts of the same continent, except I. archipelagicus, which seems to be peculiar to Borneo, and I. xanthonotus, which occurs on the Himalayas from the borders of Afghanistan to Bhutan. The interrupted geographical distribution of this genus is a very curious fact, no species having been found in the Indian or Malayan peninsula to connect the outlying forms with those of Africa, which must be regarded as their metropolis.