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H YD

H YD

HYDE, Thomas, D. D. professor of Arabic at Oxford , andone of the most learned writers of the 17th century, was born in1636; and studied first at Cambridge, and afterwards at Oxford .Before he was eighteen years of age, he was sent from Cambridgeto London to assist Mr. Brian Walton in the great work of the Po-lyglot Bible ; and about that period undertook to transcribe thePersian Pentateuch out of the Hebrew characters, which archbi-shop Usher, who well knew the difficulty of the undertaking, pro-nounced to be an impossible task to a native Persian . After hehad happily succeeded in this, he assisted in correcting severalparts of Mr. Walton ’s work, for which he was perfectly qualified.He was made archdeacon of Gloucester, canon of Christ-church,head-keeper of the Bodleian library, and professor of Hebrew andArabic, in the university of Oxford . lie was interpreter and se-cretary of the Oriental languages, during the reigns of Charles II .James II. and William III. ; and was well qualified to fill thispost, as he could converse in all these languages. There neverwas an Englishman in his situation of life who made so great a pro-gress ; but his mind was so engrossed by his beloved studies, thathe did not appear to advantage in common conversation. Of allhis learned works (the very catalogue of which, as observed byAnth. Wood, is a curiosity,) his “ Religio Veterum Persarum” isthe most celebrated. Dr. Gregory Sharpe, the late learned andingenious master of the Temple, has collected several of his piecesformerly printed, and republished them, with some additional dis-sertations, and his life prefixed, in two elegant volumes, 4to. Hedied on the 18th February', 1702. Among his other works are, 1.A Latin Translation of Ulug Beig’s Observations on the Longi-tude and Latitude of the Fixed Stars ; and, 2. A Catalogue of theprinted Books in the Bodleian Library .

Hyde, a maritime county of North Carolina , in Newbern dis-trict.

FIYDER ALY, or ALI , a famous Indian usurper, and forsome time a formidable opponent of the British interest in the EastIndies. He was the son of a killadar, or governor of a fort, tothe king of Mysore , and acquired his skill in military tactics inthe French army. In 1733, he distinguished himself as theirauxiliary at Trichinopoly . In 1763, being commander of theMysore army, he dethroned his sovereign, and governed the king-dom under the title of regent. In the wars with the British between 1767 and 1770, he displayed great spirit and abilities; butin 1771 he was totally defeated by the Mahrattahs. During thepeace that followed he greatly improved his army and revenues.In 1780, he made an irruption into the Carnatic , and cut topieces a British detachment under Col. Baillie ; but his victoriouscareer was soon stopped by Sir Evre Coote, who, w ith a forcescarcely exceeding7000men, ga ined a complete victory over HyderAli at the head of 150,000, and defeated him six times successivelyafterwards, the last of which victories was obtained on the 7lhJune, 1782, Hyder died in December 1782, five months beforeGen. Coote.

HYDNUM, in botany', a genus of the natural order of fungi,and cryptogamia class of plants. The fungus is echinatcd orprickly on the under side, with awl-shaped fibres. There are sixspecies, five with stems, and one without.

HYDRA, in fabulous history, was a serpent in the marsh ofLema, in Peloponnesus , with many heads, one of which being cutoff, another, or two others, immediately succeeded in its place,unless the wound was instantly cauterized. Hercules attackedthis monster; and having caused Iolaus to hew down wood forflaming brands, as he cut off the heads he applied the brands tothe wounds, by which means he destroyed the Hydra . This hy-dra is supposed to have been a multitude of serpents, which infest-ed the marshes of Lerna near Mycen®, and seemed to multiply asthey were destroyed. Hercules, with the assistance of his com-panions, cleared the country of them, by burning the reeds inwhich they lodged.

Hydra , in astronomy, a southern constellation, consisting of anumber of stars, imagined to represent a water-serpent, bee As-tronomy.

Hydra, in geography, an island in the Grecian Archipe-lago .

Hydra , a genus of the vermes zoopbyta. The generic cha-racter is, animal fixing itself by the base, linear, gelatinous, naked,*ontractile, and furnished with setaceous tentacula, inhabiting

fresh waters, and producing its deciduous offspring, or eggs, fromthe sides. There are five species. They are also called polypes.The name of hydra was given them by Linn®us on account ofthe property they have of reproducing themselves when cut inpieces, every part soon becoming a perfect animal. Dr. Hill call-ed them biota, on account of the strong principle of life withwhich every part of them is endowed. These animals w'ere firstdiscovered by Leeuwenhoek , who gave some account of them inthe Philos. Trans, for 1703 : but their wonderful properties werenot known till 1740, when Mr. Trembley began to investigatethem, or rather till March 1741, when he; had satisfied himself thatthey were real animals. The surprise of Mr. Trembley and others,on discovering the true nature of these animals, was very great.When Mr. Reaumur saw, for the first time, two polypes formedfrom one which he had divided into two parts, he could hardly be-lieve his own eyes ; and even after having repeated the operation100 times, he said that the sight was by no means familiar to him.The hydra, viridis, fusca, and grisea, inhabit stagnant waters andslow ly running streams, generally on the surface of plants, and ap-pear like a little transparent jelly, when contracted and transpa-rent : when expanded the body is linear, fixed at one end, andsurrounded at the other by tentacula, or arms placed in a circleround the mouth, and gradually producing its young from thesides, which at first seem small papills, increasing in length, tillthey assume the form of the parent, and then dropping otf. Thesecreatures are slender, pellucid, and capable of contracting them-selves into a very small compass, or of extending to a considerablelength. The arms are capable of the same contraction and expan-sion as the body, and with these they lay hold of minute wormsand insects, bringing them to the mouth, and swallowing them.The indigestible parts are again thrown out by the mouth. Thebodies ot the viridis and grisea diminish almost insensibly from theanterior to the posterior extremity ; but the fusca is for the mostpart of an equal size, for two-thirds of its length, from the anteriorto the posterior extremities, from which if becomes abruptlysmaller, ami then continues of a regular size to the end. Thesethree kinds have at least six, and at most twelve or thirteen arms.'I hey can contract themselves till their bodies do not exceed one-fourth of an inch in length, and they can stop at any intermediatedegree of expansion or contraction. They are of various sizes,from an inch to an inch and a half long. They can contract orexpand one arm, or any number of arms, independently of therest; and they can likewise bend their bodies or arms in all possi-ble directions. They can also dilate or contract their bodies invarious places, and sometimes appear thick set with folds, which,when carelessly viewed, appear like rings. Their progressive mo-tion is performed by that power which they have of contractingand dilating their bodies. When about to move, they benddown their heads and arms, lay hold by means of them on someother substance to which they design to fasten themselves ; thenthey loosen their tail, and draw it towards their head ; then eitherfix it in that place, or stretching forward their head as before, re-peat the same operation. '1’hey ascend or descend at pleasurein this manner upon aquatic plants, or upon the sides of the vesselin which they are kept; they sometimes hang by the tail from thesurface of the water, or sometimes by one of the arms ; and theycan walk with ease upon the surface of the water. On examiningthe tail with a microscope, a small part of it will be found to bedry above the surface of the water; and, as it were in a little con-cave space, of which the tail forms the bottom ; so that it seems tobe suspended on the surface of the water, on the same principl ethat a small phi or needle is made to swim. The fusca has thelongest arms, and makes use of the most curious manoeuvres toseize its prey. They are best viewed in a glass seven or eightinches deep, when their arms commonly hang down to the bot-tom. When this or any other kind is hungry, it spreads its aripsin a kind of circle to a considerable extent, inclosing in this, as ina net, every insect which has the misfortune to come within thecircumference. - While the animal is contracted by seizing h sprey, the arms are observed to swell like the muscles of the hu-man body when in action. Though no appearance of eyes canbe observed in the polype, they certainly have some knowledg eof the approach of their prey, and shew the greatest attention toit as soon as it comes near them. It seizes a worm the momentit is touched by one of the arms; and in conveying it to the

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