are woven, the better. They serve to render batteries firm, or to consolidate the passage over muddy ditches: or to cover traverses and lodgments, for the defence of the workmen, against the fire-works, or the stones that may be thrown against them.

HURDLES, in husbandry, certain frames, made either of split timber, or of hazel rods wattled together, to serve for gates in inclosures, or to make sheepfolds, &c.

HURRICANE, a furious storm of wind, owing to a contrariety of winds. See article WIND and WRIRLWIND. Hurricanes are frequent in the West Indies, where they make terrible ravages, by rooting up trees, destroying houses and shipping, and the like. The natives, it is said, can foretell hurricanes by the following prognostics: 1. All hurricanes happen either on the day of the full, change, or quarter of the moon. 2. From the unusual redness of the sun, the great stillness, and at the same time, turbulence of the skies, swelling of the sea, and the like, happening at the change of the moon, they conclude there will be a hurricane next full-moon; and if the same signs be observed on the full moon, they may expect one next new moon. As to the cause of hurricanes, they undoubtedly arise from the violent struggle of two opposite winds. Now as the wind betwixt the tropics is generally easterly, and upon the sun's going back from the northern tropic, the western winds pour down with violence upon those parts, the opposition of these contrary winds cannot fail to produce a hurricane. Hurricanes shift not through all the points of the compass, but begin always with a north wind, veer to the east, and then cease; and their shifting between these two points is so sudden and violent, that it is impossible for any ship to veer with it; whence it happens that the sails are carried away, yards and all, and sometimes the masts themselves wreathed round like an

osier.

HUSBAND and WIFE, usually termed baron and feme, are one person in law; that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage; or, at least, is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband, under whose wing, protection, and cover she performs every thing; she is therefore called, in our law, (French,) a feme covert, that is, under the protection and influence of her husband, her baron, or lord; and her condition, during her marriage, is called her coverture. A man cannot grant lands to his

wife during the coverture, nor any estate or interest to her, nor enter into covenant with her; but he may, by his deed, covenant with others for her use, as for her jointure, or the like; and he may give to her, by devise or will, because the devise or will does not take effect till after his death.

All deeds executed by the wife, and acts done by her during her coverture, are void; except a fine, or the like matter of record, in which case she must be solely and secretly examined, that it may be known whether or not her act be voluntary. A wife is so much favoured, in respect of that power and authority which her husband has over her, that she shall not suffer any punishment for committing a bare theft, in company with, or by coercion of her husband; but if she commit a theft of her own voluntary act, or by the bare command of her husband, or be guilty of treason, murder, or robbery, in company with, or by coercion of her husband, she is punishable as much as if she were sole; because of the odiousness and dangerons consequence of these crimes. By marriage, the husband hath power over his wife's person; and the courts of law still permit a husband to restrain a wife of her liberty, in case of any gross misbehaviour; but if he threaten to kill her, &c., she may make him find surety of the peace, by suing a writ of supplicarit out of Chancery, or by preferring articles of the peace against him, in the court of King's Bench, or she may apply to the spiritual court for a divorce, on account of cruelty. The husband, by marriage, obtains a freehold in right of his wife, if he takes a woman to wife that is seized of a freehold ; and he may make a lease thereof for twentyone years, or three lives, if it be made according to the statute, 32 Henry VIII. c. 28. The husband also gains a chattel real, as a term for years, to dispose of, if he please, by grant or lease in her life-time, or by surviving her otherwise it remains with the wife; and upon execution for the husband's debt, the sheriff may sell the term during the life of the wife. The husband also, by the marriage, hath an absolute gift of all chattels personal, in possession of the wife in her own right, whether he survives her or not. But if these chattels personal. are choses in action, that is, things to be sned for by action, as debts by obligation, contract, or the like, the husband shall not have them, unless he and his wife recover them.

By custom in London, a wife may carry

of this fungus, five with stems, and one without; these chiefly grow on decaying wood.

HYDRA, in astronomy, a southern constellation imagined to represent a waterserpent. The number of stars in this constellation in Ptolemy's catalogue is twentyfive, and in the Britannic catalogue, sixtyeight.

HYDRA, polypes, in natural history, a genus of the Vermes Zoophyta class and order. Animal fixing itself by the base, linear, gelatinous, naked, contractile and furnished with setaceous tentacula or feelers; inhabiting fresh waters, and producing its deciduous offspring or eggs from the sides. There are five species. H. gelatinosa, minute, gelatinons, milk-white, cylindrical, with twelve tentacula shorter than the body: it inhabits Denmark, in clusters on the under side of Fuci. But on the viridis, the fusca, and the grisca the greater number of experiments have been made, by naturalists, to ascertain their true nature and very wonderful habits. They are generally found in ditches. Whoever has carefully examined these when the sun is very powerful, will find many little transparent lumps of the appearance of jelly, and size of a pea, and flatted upon one side. The same kind of substances are likewise to be met with on the under side of the leaves of plants that grow in such places. These are the polypes in a quiescent state, and apparently inanimate. They are generally fixed by one end to some solid substance, with a large opening, which is the mouth; at the other, having several arms fixed round it, projecting as rays from the centre, They are slender, pellucid, and capable of contracting themselves into a very small compass, or of extending to a considerable length. The arms are capable of the same contraction and expansion as the body, and with these they lay hold of minute worms and insects, bringing them to the mouth, and swallowing them. The indigestible parts are again thrown out by the mouth. The green polype was that first discovered by M. Trembley: and the first appearances of spontaneous motion were perceived in its arms, which it can contract, expand, and twist about in various directions. On the first appearance of danger they contract to such a degree, that they appear little longer than a grain of sand, of a fine green colour, the arms disappearing entirely. Soon afterwards, he found the grisca, and afterwards the fusca. The

bodies of the viridis and grisca diminish almost insensibly from the anterior to the posterior extremity; but the fusca is for the most part of an equal size, for two thirds of its length, from the anterior to the posterior extremities, from which it be comes abruptly smaller, and then continues of a regular size to the end. These three kinds have at least six, and at most twelve or thirteen arms. They can contract themselves till their bodies do not exceed one fourth of an inch in length, and they can stop at any intermediate degree of expansion or contraction. They are of vari ous sizes, from an inch to an inch and a half long. Their arms are seldom longer than their bodies, though some have them an inch, and some even eight inches long. The thickness of their bodies decreases as they extend themselves, and vice versa ; and they may be made to contract themselves either by agitating the water in which they are contained, or by touching the animals themselves. When taken out of the water they all contract so much, that they appear only like a little lump of jelly. They can contract or expand one arm, or any number of arms, independently of the rest; and they can likewise bend their bodies or arms in all possible directions. They can also dilate or contract their bodies in various places, and sometimes appear thick set with folds, which, when carelessly viewed, appear like rings. Their progressive motion is performed by that power, which they have of contracting and dilating their bodies. When about to move, they bend down their heads and arms, lay hold by means of them on some other substance to which they design to fasten them. selves; then they loosen their tail, and draw it towards the head; then either fix it in that place, or stretching forward their head as before, repeat the same operation. They ascend or descend at pleasure in this manner upon aquatic plants, or upon the sides of the vessel in which they are kept; they sometimes hang by the tail from the surface of the water, or sometimes by one of the arms; and they can walk with case upon the surface of the water. On examining the tail with a microscope, a small part of it will be found to be dry above the surface of the water; and, as it were in a little concave space, of which the tail forms the bottom; so that it seems to be suspended on the surface of the water on the same principle that a small pin or needle is made to swim. When a polype, there

fore, means to pass from the sides of the glass to the surface of the water, it has only to put that part out of the water by which it is to be supported, and to give it time to dry, which it always does upon these occasions; and they attach themselves so firmly by the tail to aquatic plants, stones, &c. that they cannot be easily disengaged they often further strengthen these attachments by means of one or two of their arms, which serve as a kind of anchors for fixing them to the adjacent substances.

The fusca has the longest arms, and makes use of the most curious manœuvres to seize its prey. They are best viewed in a glass seven or eight inches deep, when their arms commonly hang down to the bottom. When this or any other kind is hungry, it spreads its arms in a kind of circle to a considerable extent, inclosing in this, as in a net, every insect which has the misfortune to come within the circumference. While the animal is contracted by seizing its prey, the arms are observed to swell like the muscles of the human body when in action. Though no appearance of eyes can be observed in the polype, they certainly have some knowledge of the approach of their prey, and show the greatest attention to it as soon as it comes near them. It seizes a worm the moment it is touched by one of the arms; and in conveying it to the mouth, it frequently twists the arm into a spiral like a cork-screw, by which means the insect is brought to the mouth in a much shorter time than other wise it would be; and so soon are the insects on which the polypes feed killed by them, that M. Fontana thinks they must contain the most powerful kind of poison; for the lips scarcely touch the animal when it expires, though there cannot be any wound perceived on it when dead. The worm, when swallowed, appears sometimes single, sometimes double, according to circumstances. When full, the polype contracts itself, hangs down as in a kind of stupor, but extends again in proportion as the food is digested, and the excrementitious part is discharged. The manner in which the polypes generate is most perceptible in the grisca and fusca, as being considerably larger than the viridis. If we examine one of them in summer, when the animals are most active, and prepared for propagation, some small tubercles will be found proceeding from its sides, which constantly increase in bulk, until at last in two

or three days they assume the figure of small polypes. When they first begin to shoot, the excrescence becomes pointed, assuming a conical figure, and deeper colour than the rest of the body. In a short time it becomes truncated, and then cylindrica!, after which the arms begin to shoot from the anterior end. The tail adheres to the body of the parent animal, but gradually grows smaller, until at last it adheres only by a point, and is then ready to be separated. When this is the case, both the mother and young ones fix themselves to the sides of the glass, and are separated from each other by a sudden jerk. The time requisite for the formation of the young ones is very different, according to the warmth of the weather, and the nature of the food eaten by the mother. Sometimes they are fully formed, and ready to drop off in twenty-four hours; in other cases, when the weather is cold, fifteen days have been requisite for bringing them to perfection. The polypes produce young ones indiscriminately from all parts of their bodies, and five or six young ones have frequently been produced at once; nay, M. Trembley has observed rine or ten produced at the same time. Nothing like copulation among these creatures was ever observed by M. Trembley, though for two years he had thousands of them under his inspection.

one.

When a polype is cut transversely, or longitudinally, into two or three parts, each part in a short time becomes a perfect animal; and so great is this prolific power, that a new animal will be produced even from a small portion of the skin of the old If the young ones be mutilated while they grow upon the parent, the parts so cut off will be reproduced; and the same property belongs to the parent. A truncated portion will send forth young ones before it has acquired a new head and tail of its own, and sometimes the head of the young one supplies the place of that which should have grown out of the old one. If we slit a polype longitudinally through the head to the middle of the body, we shall have one formed with two heads; and by again slitting these in the same manner, we may form one with as many heads as we please. A still more surprizing property of these animals is, that they may be grafted together. If the truncated portions of a polype be placed end to end, and gently pushed together, they will unite into a single one. The two