Band 
Vol. II.
Seite
706
JPEG-Download
 

H ER

705

HE

cease of the owner of the land. See Tenure. It is of twosorts,’ viz.

I. Heriot-Custom, where heriots have been paid time out ofmind by custom, after the death cf a tenant for life. In someplaces, there is a customary composition in money, as 10 or 20shillings in lieu of a herioi, by which the lord and tenant are bothbomid, if it be an indisputably ancient custom ; but a new com-position of this sort will not bind the representatives of eitherparly.

II. II eriot-Servjce, when a tenant holds by such service topay lieriot at the time ol his death ; which service is expressed inthe deed of feoffment. For this latter the lord shall distrain ; andfor the other he shall seize, and not distrain. If tiie lord purchasepart of the tenancy, heriot-service is extinguished ; but it is notso of heriot-custom. "

llERISiriON, in fortification, abeam armed with a great num-ber of iron-spikes with their points outwards, and supported by apivot on which it turns. These serve as a barrier to block upany passage, and are frequently placed before the gates, and moreespecially the wicket-doors, of a town or fortress, to secure thosepassages which must be often opened and shut.

HERITABLE RIGHTS, in Scots law, signify all rights affect-ing lands, houses, &c. or any immoveable subject.

HERITAGE, in Scots law, implies lands, houses, and all im-moveable subjects, in contradistinction to moveables or moveablesubject.. It also signifies such immoveable property, as a personsucceeds to as heir to another, in contradistinction to that whichlie himself purchases, or acquires otherwise, called conquer.t.

HERITIERA, a genus of the moncecia monadelphia class andorder. Calyx live-toothed ; corolla none. Male ; anthers ten,without filaments. Female ; germ live ; drupes with one globularseed. There is one species, a tree of the East-Indies, called thelooking-glass-tree.

HERK, a river of Germany , in the late bishopric of Liege.

Herk, a town of France , in the department of Ourte, and latebishopric of Liege, 20 miles N. V 1 . of Maestricht .

H ERKEMER, a town and county of New York .

I! E1LVLEA, in antiquity, ancient Greek festivals in honour ofMercury. One of these was celebrated by the Phenoatara inArcadia ; a second by the Cyllenians in Elis; and a third by theTancgraeans.

HERMAN, Paul, a famous botanist in the 17th century,born at Hall in Saxony . He practised physic in the isle of Ceylon,and was afterwards professor of botany at Leyden, where be diedin 1695. He wrote, 1. A Catalogue of the Plants in the publicgarden at Leyden. 2. Cynosure Materia; Mediae. 3. Flora:Ltigduno Batavse Flores. 4. Puradisus Batavus: and, 5. MusaeumZevlanicum'.

HERMANN, James, a learned mathematician of the aca-demy at Berlin, and a member of the academy of sciences atParis, was born at Basil in the year 167S. He was a greattraveller, and for six years was professor of mathematics atPadua. He afterwards*went to Muscovy, being invited thitherby Peter the Great, in 1724. On his’return to Basil , he was’ ' r - — 1 — 1 ’aw ; and died there in

Considerationes circarincipiaeatcnn umeremiaus; - ue Plioronomia “ De novaAccelerationis I.ege;” “ Disquisitio de Vibrationibus ChordarumCensarum;” “ Solutio Problematis de Trajectoriis Curvis in ve-niendis.”

1IERMANNIA, in botany, a genus of the pentandria order,and monadelphia class of plants; natural order, Columniferr. Stylesfive ; capsule five-celled ; petals semitubular at the base, oblique.There are twenty-one species. The hermannias are shrubs fromtwo to seven feet in height. Natives of the Cape of GoodHope .

HERMAPHRODITE , a person of both sexes, or who hasthe parts of generation both of male and female. The term isapplied to other animals besides man, and even to plants. Theword is a compound of ‘Emxijj, Mercury, and a^oJith Venus; (j. d.a mixture of Mercury and Venus, i. e. of male and female. TheGreeks also call hermaphrodites, ayJ^yuvm, andregyni, q. d. men-women. See Androgynes . In a paper by Mr. Hunter, in the69th volume of the Philosophical Transactions , hermaphroditesare divided into natural, and unnatural or monstrous. The first

belongs to the more simple orders of animals, of which there is amuch greater number than of the more perfect. The unnaturaltakes place in every tribe of animals, having distinct sexes, butis more common in some than in others. The human species, heimagines, has the lowest, never having seen them in that species,nor in dogs; but in the horse, sheep, and black cattle, they arevery irequent. From Mr. Hunter’s account, however, it doesnot appear that such a creature as a perfect hermaphrodite hasever existed. In most species of animals, the production ofhermaphrodites appears to be the eilect of chance; but inthe black cattle it seems to be an established principle of theirpropagation. It is a well-known fact, and, as lar as lias yet beendiscovered, appears to be universal, that when a cow brings forthtwo calves, one of them a bull, and tile other a cow’ to appear-ance, the cow is unfit for propagation, but the bull-calf becomesa very proper bull. The cows are known not to breed ; they donot even shew the least inclination for the bull, nor does the bullever take the least notice oi them. Among the country-peoplein England, this kind of calf is called a free-niarlin ; and this sin-gularity is just as well known among the farmers, as either cow orbull. When they are preserved, it is for the purposes of an ox orspayed heifer ; viz. to yoke with the oxen, or fatten for the table.They are much larger than either the bull or the cow, and thehorns grow longer and bigger, being very similar to those of anox. The bellow of a free-martin is similar to that of an ox, andthe meat is similar to that of the ox or spayed heifer, viz. muchliner in the fibre than either the bull or cow : and thev are moresusceptible of growing fat with good food. By some they aresupposed to exceed the ox and heifer in delicacy of taste, and beara higher price at market ; this, however, does not always hold, andMr. Hunter gives an instance of the contrary. The Romans,who called the bull taunts, spoke also of taune, in the femininegender, different from vaccae or cows. Stephens observes, thatit was thought they meant by this word barren cows, who ob-tained this name because they did not conceive any more thanbulls. He quotes a passage from Columella, lib. ’vi. cap. 2°

“ And, like the taura:, which occupy the place of fertile cows,should be rejected or sent away.” Among the reptile tribe, suchas worms, snails, leeches, <Vc. hermaphrodites are very frequent.In the Memoirs of the French Academy, we have an account ofthis very extraordinary kind of hermaphrodites, which not onlyhave both sexes, but do the office of both at the same time. Suchare earth-worms, round-tailed worms found in the intestines ofmen and horses, land-snails, and those of fresh waters, and all thesorts of leeches. And, as all these are reptiles, and without bones,M. Poupart concludes it probable, that all other insects whichhave these two characters are also hermaphrodites. The methodof coupling practised in tins cla-.s of hermaphrodites, may tie il-lustrated in the instance of earth-worms. These creep two bytwo, out of boles proper to receive them, where they dispose theirbodies in such a manner as that the head of the one is turned tothe tail of the other. Being thus-tretchcd lengthwise, a little co-nical button or papilla is thrust forth bv each, and received intoan aperture of the other. Among the iirsects of tiie soft or bone-less kind, there are ereat numbers, which are so far from beinghermaphrodites, that they are of no sex at all. Of tins kind areall the caterpillars, maggots, and worms, produced of the eggs ofHies of all kinds: but the reason of this is plain; thtse are notanimals in a perfect state, but disguises under which animals lurk.They have no business with the propagating ot tlit-:r species, butare to be transformed into winged animals, by nutting off their co-verings; and then only they are in their perfect st-.te, and there-fore then only shew the differences of sex, which are always indistinct animals, each being only male or female. These copu-late, and their eggs produce these creatures, which shew no sextill they arrive at that perfect state again.

Hermaphrodite Flowers, in botany, are so called by thesexualists on account of their containing bntn the anthene andstigma, the organs of generation, within the ante calyx and pe-tals. Of this kind are (tie (lowers of all the classes in Liinufus’ssexual method, except the classes mono cia and diacia ; m the for*mer of which, male and female flowers are produced < n sameroot; in the latter, on distinct plants from the same seed. In theclass polygamia, they are alwavs hermaphrodite (lowers mixedwith male or female, or boll), cither on the same or distinct roots.

la