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the form of a lyre. The common lyre bird (Menura superba), inhabiting New South Wales, is about the size of a grouse. Its general color is brown, with rufous color on the throat, wings, tail coverts and tail. Called also lyre pheasant and lyre-tail.

One of the group of shooting stars which come into the air in certain years on or about the 19th of April; -- so called because the apparent path among the stars the stars if produced back wards crosses the constellation Lyra.

An East Indian coin, of about one tenth of the weight of a rupee.

A finical person; a fop; -- applied especially to English fops of about 1775. Goldsmith.

Any parrot of the genus Sittace, or Macrocercus. About eighteen species are known, all of them American. They are large and have a very long tail, a strong hooked bill, and a naked space around the eyes. The voice is harsh, and the colors are brilliant and strongly contrasted.

The name of two ancient historical books, which give accounts of Jewish affairs in or about the time of the Maccabean princes, and which are received as canonical books in the Roman Catholic Church, but are included in the Apocrypha by Protestants. Also applied to three books, two of which are found in some MSS. of the…

tion may be transmitted and modified, as a screw and its nut, or a lever arranged to turn about a fulcrum or a pulley about its pivot, etc.; especially, a construction, more or less complex, consisting of a combination of moving parts, or simple mechanical elements, as wheels, levers, cams, etc., with their supports an…

ke mad. L'Estrange. -- To run mad. (a) To become wild with excitement. (b) To run wildly about under the influence of hydrophobia; to become affected with hydrophobia. -- To run mad after, to pursue under the influence of infatuation or immoderate desire. "The world is running mad after farce." Dryden.…

A small Abyssinian antelope (Neotragus Saltiana), about the size of a hare.

compositions. Magazine dress, clothing made chiefly of woolen, without anything metallic about it, to be worn in a powder magazine. -- Magazine gun, a portable firearm, as a rifle, with a chamber carrying cartridges which are brought automatically into position for firing. -- Magazine stove, a stove having a chamber…

o, the color; -- so called from Magenta, in Italy, in allusion to the battle fought there about the time the dye was discovered. Called also fuchsine, roseïne, etc.

ameter. -- Magnitude of a star (Astron.), the rank of a star with respect to brightness. About twenty very bright stars are said to be of first magnitude, the stars of the sixth magnitude being just visible to the naked eye. Telescopic stars are classified down to the twelfth magnitude or lower. The scale of the magni…

The platform about the head of the mainmast in square-rigged vessels.

To bring about; to bring forward; to be the cause or agent of; to effect, do, perform, or execute; -- often used with a noun to form a phrase equivalent to the simple verb that corresponds to such noun; as, to make complaint, for to complain; to make record of, for to record; to make abode, for to abide, etc. Call for…

A human being; -- opposed tobeast. These men went about wide, and man found they none, But fair country, and wild beast many [a] one. R. of Glouc. The king is but a man, as I am; the violet smells to him as it doth to me. Shak.

To bring about; to contrive. Shak.

oth of gold and silver, and of variously estimated values. The silver mancus was equal to about one shilling of modern English money.

The long and heavy hair growing on the upper side of, or about, the neck of some quadrupedal animals, as the horse, the lion, etc. See Illust. of Horse.

emed for food. It has several long, slender filaments below the pectoral fins. It appears about the same time with the mango fruit, in April and May, whence the name. -- Mango tree (Bot.), an East Indian tree of the genus Mangifera (M. Indica), related to the cashew and the sumac. It grows to a large size, and produce…

ge. Manx cat (Zoöl.), a breed of domestic cats having a rudimentary tail, containing only about three vertebrae. -- Manx shearwater (Zoöl.), an oceanic bird (Puffinus anglorum, or P. puffinus), called also Manx petrel, Manx puffin. It was formerly abundant in the Isle of Man.