BLOCKHOUSE-BLOIS. longer at liberty to make any purchase in that port. But the most essential element is actual B., and this state of things can only be proved to the satisfaction of a court of justice by the ships stationed on the spot to maintain the B. using their force for that purpose. A B., therefore, is only to be considered as actually existing when there is a power to enforce it. To be valid, a B. must be accompanied by actual investment of the place, and it may be more or less rigorous, either for the purpose of watching the operations of the enemy, or, on a more extended scale, to cut off all access of neutral vessels to that interdicted place, which is strictly and properly a B.; for the former is, in truth, no B. at all, as far as neutrals are concerned. But to be binding on neutrals, it ought to be shewn that they have knowledge, or may be presumed to know of the B.; and this knowledge may arise in two wayseither by such a public and formal notification as we have already described, or by the notoriety of the fact. Yet it is at all times most convenient that the B. should be declared in a public and distinct manner, instead of being left to creep out from the consequences produced by it; and the effect of such notification to the neutral government is clearly to include all the individuals subject to the latter. The The breach of B. may be either by coming out of the blockaded port, or going in; such breach, however, may sometimes be excusable. It has been decided that intoxication on the part of the master of a ship will not be received as an excuse. breach of B. subjects the property so employed to confiscation; there is no rule of the law of nations more established than this, and it is universally acknowledged by all civilised governments. The violation of B. by the master, however, affects the ship, but not the cargo, unless the cargo is the property of the same owner, or unless the owner of the cargo is cognizant of the intended violation. On the proclamation of peace, or from any political or belligerent cause, the continuance of the investment may cease to be necessary, and the B. is then said to be raised. The blockading force then retires, and the port is open as before to all other nations.-See the law on the subject of this article extremely well stated in A Manual of the Law of Maritime Warfare, by William Hazlitt and Henry Philip Roche, Barristers-at-law, 1854; see, also, ORDERS IN COUNCIL, BRITISH. BLOCKHOUSE is to a temporary fortification what a tower is to one that is permanent. In a wooded country, it is easily and quickly made, and the enemy cannot readily bring guns to bear upon it; on flat open ground it is less useful. The B. is always a covered defence, unlike a battery; sometimes with only one story, sometimes with two, of d C Elevation of Blockhouse. which the lower forms a barrack for a few men. It is usually either rectangular or shaped like a Greek cross; the latter is preferred, as enabling the fronts of fire to flank each other. One among the many kinds of B. is shewn in the annexed cut: where ab denotes the natural level of the ground; c, a mound or parapet formed from the earth obtained out of the ditch, d; and e, a mass of earth to cover the roof. The loopholes for musketry are shewn at the side. The defence is usually by musketry. If opposed to infantry only, single rows of trunks of trees, either upright or horizontal, make a very good B., loopholed at intervals of about three feet; and if there be earth enough quickly obtainable, by digging a ditch or from any other source, to embank it all round and to cover the roof, it will bear a great deal of rough usage. If opposed to artillery, the B. requires to be formed with double rows of trunks three feet apart, with well-rammed earth between them. The American back woodsmen build blockhouses with great quickness and efficiency; several of these, with a curtain or continuous wall of stockading, may be made to enclose a large space, capable of accommodating a great number of defenders, and of repelling a considerable hostile force. The base of a wind-mill, on a hill, has in European countries often formed a good blockhouse. A regular B. should have a ditch, not only to supply earth, but to keep the enemy from approaching near enough to fire the timber of the blockhouse. There must be, at least, four feet of well-rammed earth on the roof, to resist the effect of artillery. Such a structure without a roof is not a B., it is simply a stockade. BLOCK-PRINTING. See PRINTING. BLO'CKSBERG, the name given to various mountains and hills in Germany, but pre-eminently Mountains, and, indeed, of the north of Germany. to the Brocken, the highest point of the Harz haunt of the witches, where they celebrate the night According to the popular belief, it is the favourite of the 1st of May, Walpurgisnacht (q. v.), with wild orgies. Almost all mountains thus haunted, are known to have been famous places of sacrifice in the ages of paganism. BLOCK-SHIP, is a ship of war too old or too slow in sailing to render efficient service in action out at sea, but useful as a defence in great ports and naval arsenals. At the present time, when war-steamers are coming more and more into use, some of the old sailing men-of-war are nearly valueless except as block-ships. At the beginning of 1859 the English block-ships were about ten in number; at the present time there is a still greater number available for no other purpose. BLOCK TIN is an inferior variety of tin. When the metal is reduced from its ores, it is first poured into moulds, and the ingots thus procured are heated to incipient fusion in a reverberatory furnace, when the pure tin first fuses, and is withdrawn; and the pure tin which is left behind being melted at a higher temperature, is poured into moulds, and is known as block tin. See TIN. less BLOIS, a town of France, capital of the department of Loire-et-Cher, has a remarkably fine situation on the acclivity of a hill, and is built chiefly on the right bank of the Loire, over which there is here a good stone bridge. It is about 35 miles south-west of Orleans, on the railway between that place and Tours. The houses, in the upper part of the town especially, are mean and ill built, and the streets are crooked and narrow, but they are kept clean by water from the public fountains, which are supplied by a splendid aqueduct, supposed to have been constructed by the Romans. B. has a handsome cathedral; but its chief glory is its old castle, which has been the scene of many interesting historical events. Louis XII. was born in it, and under its roof Charles, Duc d'Alençon, and Margaret of Anjou, and Heuri IV. and Margaret of Valois were married. Here also were sometimes held the courts of François I., Henri II., Charles IX., and Henri III. Here also BLOMFIELD-BLOOD. the Duc de Guise and his brother were murdered, by order of Henri III., on the 23d December 1588. Isabella, queen of Charles VI., here found a retreat; it served as a prison for Mary de' Medici; Catharine de' Medici died within its walls; and Maria Louisa here held her court in 1814, after Paris had capitulated. B. is a place of great antiquity. Stephen, who usurped the crown of England on the death of Henry I., was a son of one of the counts of B., by Adela the daughter of William the Conqueror. B. is an archbishop's see, has a tribunal of commerce, a communal college, a public library of 20,000 vols., a botanic garden, &c., and manufactures of porcelain and gloves, with a trade in brandy, wine, and wood. Pop. 13,552. BLOM'FIELD, CHARLES JAMES, Bishop of London, a learned and influential prelate of the Church of England, was born in 1786, at Bury St Edmund's, in Suffolk, where his father was schoolmaster. Being well grounded by his father in the classics, B. went to Cambridge, where he took high honours. After he had filled several curacies, the Bishop of London appointed him his chaplain, in recognition of his acknowledged philological and theological acquirements. Shortly after, he was called to the living of St Botolph; in 1824, he was made Bishop of Chester; and in 1828, he was promoted to the see of London, on the translation of Bishop Howley to Canterbury. B.'s reputation for classical scholarship rests chiefly on his editions of Callimachus (Lond. 1815), and of several of the dramas of Eschylus. In connection with Rennel, he published the Muse Cantabrigienses; and with Monk (1812) the Posthumous Tracts of Porson; and in 1814, the Adversaria Porsoni. He also published Lectures on the Acts of the Apostles. B. was exceedingly active in the superintendence of his diocese, and was a prime mover in the agitation for the erection of new churches. Under his presidency, more churches were erected in London than under any bishop since the Reformation. His conduct in regard to the controversies that latterly agitated his diocese was much animadverted on by both parties. He was accused at one time of leaning to Puseyism, and yet he proceeded against his clergy for alleged crypto-catholic practices. He died August 1857. which his master was confined. He wandered through Germany in disguise, and at length coming to the castle of Löwenstein, in Austria, he heard that it contained some illustrious captive. Feeling assured that this was no other than the king, he tried all means to get a sight of him, but to no purpose. He then placed himself opposite to the tower in which he learned the unknown was imprisoned, and commenced singing one of those Provençal songs which Richard and he had composed together. Hardly had B. finished the first stanza, when a well-known voice from the tower took up the second, and carried it on to the end. So the minstrel discovered his monarch, and, returning with all speed to England, was the means of his being ransomed by his subjects. Only a few of B.'s poems have come down to us; these are preserved in the Library of the Arsenal at Paris. Blood Corpuscles highly magnified. BLOOD, the nutritive fluid of the tissues, consists of a fluid, the liquor sanguinis, in which float corpuscles or globules. The liquor sanguinis consists of water, in which are dissolved fibrine, albumen, chlorides of sodium and potassium, phosphates of soda, lime, and magnesia. There are also in the B. some fatty, and, what are called vaguely by chemists, extractive matters.' The corpuscles are of two kinds-white and red; the white are larger and less numerous than the red. They contain small molecules. The red, which seem to have their origin in the white or colourless corpuscles, are peculiar to vertebrate animals, and to them the B. owes its characteristic colour. They are flat disks, oval in birds, reptiles, and fishes, circular in man and most mammalia. They are concave on both sides, so that their edges are thicker than the centres, and hence the dark appearance of the latter under the microscope, which, for some time, led observers to believe that they possessed a nucleus. The size of a red corpuscle in man is from of an inch to BLOMMAERT, PHILIP, one of the most promi-800 of an inch. They are largest in reptiles. nent of living Flemish authors, was born in 1809. Those of that singular animal, the proteus, are 337 In 1834, he published a volume of verse, characterised of an inch in long diameter, and can almost be by much simplicity and earnestness, but so inartistic in form that it met with little success. He rendered better service to literature and to the patriotic cause by the publication (1836-1841) of Theophilus, an old Flemish poem of the 14th c., and of the Oude Vlaemische gedichte (Old Flemish Poems) of the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries. Both works are enriched with glossaries and learned annotations. B. shews a predilection for middle-age literature generally, and has translated the Nibelungen into Flemish iambics. His most important work is a History of the Belgians (Brussels, 1849), in which he attempts to shew that the political destiny of the Low Countries has ever been identical with that of Germany, and that it is with the latter country, and not with France, she should seek to ally herself. B. has also contributed extensively to several Belgian journals, especially to the Messager des Sciences Historiques. BLONDEL, a celebrated French minstrel of the 12th c., and the favourite of Richard the Lionheart, king of England, whom he accompanied to Palestine. When Richard, on his return, was seized and imprisoned by Leopold, Duke of Austria, B. (according to the exquisitely romantic myth of an old chronicler) resolved to find out the place in seen with the naked eye. the carnivora have a prismatic form, whilst those The When drawn from the body, or if it has escaped in any way from the blood-vessels, B. undergoes becomes solid, and in so doing, entangles the corsome singular changes. The fibrine coagulates, or puscles, thus forming a clot (crassamentum); the water, still retaining the albumen and the saline matters, drains away, and is termed serum. rapidity with which this change takes place, the relative bulk of the serum and the clot, and the firmness of the latter, vary with circumstances; the more fibrine, the longer does the clot take to form. Moderate heat and exposure to the air favours it, cold and exclusion from the air retards it ; it is also BLOOD. retarded in those cases where death has occurred from some sudden shock, as from lightning, and the B. remains fluid in the veins for some time after death. But even during life, B. escaped from the vessels coagulates nearly as rapidly as if out of the body. In some forms of malignant fever, or when the poison of glanders or malignant pustule has entered the B., the latter remains fluid, also in cases where the blood is what is termed poor, as in scurvy, and in those suffocated. The size and firmness of the clot depends on the amount of fibrine in the B., which in health averages about 2 parts in 1000. In inflammations it is much increased, and the B. forms slowly into a tough clot, which is almost destitute of red globules on its surface, and drawn in towards the centre, this colourless layer is termed the 'buffy coat,' and the physicians of bygone times used to attach great importance to it, believing that it was a phenomenon peculiar to inflammation, and bleeding repeatedly, with the view to its removal; whereas anything which delays coagulation, great poverty of B., as in Chlorosis (q. v.), green-sickness, or any condition in which the fibrine is in greater proportion than the red blood globules, will cause this appearance; the clot of the impoverished blood will, how ever, be small and loose, and floating in an excessive quantity of serum. The colour of the B. varies, as it happens to come from the venous or arterial side of the heart. The florid scarlet arterial B., passing through the capillaries, loses its oxygen, becomes loaded with carbonic acid, and appears in the veins of a dark purple colour, which it changes again for scarlet, when it is sent to the lungs, there to part with its carbonic acid and to absorb a fresh supply of oxygen. See CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD. It seems probable that this change is owing to the effect of the oxygen on the corpuscles, contracting them, and altering their reflecting surfaces; carbonic acid, on the other hand, rendering them thinner and more flaccid. The changes in colour can be effected in B. drawn out of the body by the application of the gases mentioned. commutation for murder. The primitive institution or custom subsists in full force among the Arabs at this day. Many of the hereditary feuds of families, clans, and tribes in all barbarous and semi-barbarous countries, have always been connected with the avenging of blood. BLOOD, CORRUPTION OF (in Law). See CORRUPTION OF BLOOD. BLOOD, EATING of. The eating of B. was prohibited under the Old Testament dispensation, obviously for reasons connected with the use of animals in sacrifice. Christians, with a few exceptions, have always regarded the prohibition as having ceased with the reason for it; and the exhortation of the apostolic council of Jerusalem to the Gentile converts, to abstain from things strangled and from blood,' to have been merely an application of the great law of Christian charity to the circumstances of a transition period, with reference to the prejudices of Jewish converts. BLOOD OF OUR SAVIOUR, was an order of knighthood in Mantua, instituted by Duke Vincent Gonçaga in 1608, on the occasion of the marriage of his son with a daughter of the Duke of Savoy. It consisted of 20 knights, the Mantuan dukes being sovereigns. The collar had threads of gold laid on fire, and interwoven with the words Domine probasti. To the collar were pendent two angels, supporting three drops of blood, and circumscribed with the motto Nihil isto triste recepto. The name originated in the belief that in St Andrew's Church, in Mantua, certain drops of our Saviour's blood are kept as a relic. BLOOD OF ST JANUARIUS. See JANU ARIUS, ST. BLOOD, THOMAS, a most daring, unscrupulous, and successful adventurer, was born in Ireland about 1628, and served there in the parliamentary army. After the Restoration, he put himself at the head of an insurrectionary plot, which was to begin with the seizure of Dublin Castle, and of Ormond, the lord-lieutenant. On its timely discovery, he The red B. corpuscle performs important duties fled, while his chief accomplices were seized and in our bodies. Possessing great powers of absorb- executed. Escaping to Holland, he was received ing oxygen, it hurries away from the left side there with high consideration. He soon found his of the heart, and bears that life-giving stimulus way back to England, to try what mischief might to the tissues; takes from them nearly as readily be brewed among the fifth-monarchy men. the carbonic acid, which would poison the whole ing no prospect of success, he repaired to Scotland, body if allowed to remain; carries it away, and invited by the turbulent state of affairs, and was gets rid of it in the lungs, where it again absorbs present at the fight of Pentland, November 27, oxygen; and again goes on its useful circuit 1666. On the night of the 6th December 1670, through the body till, following the laws which the Duke of Ormond was seized, in his coach in St govern all cells and bodies composed of them, it James's Street, by a gang of bravoes, tied on horsewears out, degenerates, and dies. The most impor-back behind one of them, and hurried away towards tant differences in the blood of different classes of animals, are noticed in the articles on these classes. See also RESPIRATION. BLOOD, AVENGER OF. In the early ages of society, the infliction of the penalty of death for murder did not take place by the action of any tribunal or public authorities administering law, but, in accordance with the rude social condition, was left to the nearest relative of the murdered, whose recognised duty was to pursue and slay the murderer. He was called the Avenger of B., in Hebrew, Goël (q. v.), which term, however, was of wider signification. The Mosaic law (Numb. XXXV.) did not set aside this universal institution of primitive society, but placed it under regulations, prohibiting the commutation of the penalty of death for money, which appears to have become frequent, and appointing cities of refuge for the manslayer who was not really a murderer. See CITY OF REFUGE. The Koran sanctions the avenging of B. by the nearest kinsman, but also sanctions the pecuniary Find Tyburn. The timely approach of his attendants at the moment that he had succeeded in struggling with his riding-companion to the ground, probably saved him from hanging. The leader in this daring villainy was B., and so well had he contrived it, that he did not even incur suspicion. His next enterprise was still more wild and dangerous. On the 9th of May 1671, disguised as a clergyman, and accompanied by his former accomplices, he entered the Tower with the determination to carry off the regalia of England. After nearly murdering the keeper of the jewels, he actually succeeded in carrying off the crown under his cloak, while one of his associates bore away the orb. They were immediately pursued, however, seized, and committed to the Tower jail. Now came a singular turn of fortune. At the instigation of Buckingham, who was accused of having hired B. to attack the Duke of Ormond, King Charles visited the dauntless miscreant in prison, and, dreading the threat that there were hundreds of B.'s associates banded together by BLOOD-BIRD-BLOOD-ROOT. oath to avenge the death of any of the fraternity, pardoned him, took him to court, gave him an estate of £500 a year, and raised him so high in favour that for several years Colonel B. was an influential medium of royal patronage. This scandalous disregard of public decency was heightened by the fact, that the old jewel-keeper, who had risked his life in defence of his charge, applied in vain for payment of a small reward for his devotion. After the fall of the cabal' ministry, B. became hostile to Buckingham, and for a scandalous charge against him was committed to prison. He was bailed out, and died in his own house in 1680. BLOOD-BIRD of New South Wales (Myzomela sanguinolenta), a beautiful little species of Honeysucker (q. v.), which receives its name from the rich scarlet colour of the head, neck, breast, and back of the male. It inhabits thickets. A very similar species is found in Bengal. BLOOD-FLOWER (Hamanthus), a genus of bulbous-rooted plants, of the natural order Amaryllide (q. v.), mostly natives of South Africa, some of which are among the prized ornaments of British green-houses. They take their name from the usual colour of their flowers, which form a fine head or cluster, arising from a spathe of a number of leaves. The fruit is a berry, usually with three seeds. The leaves of the different species exhibit considerable diversity of form, in some almost linear, in others almost round; in some, also, they are erect, in others appressed to the ground. The bulbs of some of the finest species of B. being very slow to produce offshoots, a curious method of propagating them is BLOOD-HOUND, a variety of Hound (q. v.) remarkable for its exquisite scent and for its great sagacity and perseverance in tracking any object to the pursuit of which it has been trained. It derives its name from its original common employment in the chase, either to track a wounded animal or to discover the lair of a beast of prey. It was also formerly called, both in England and Scotland, sleut-hound or sleuth-hound, from the Saxon sleut, the track of a deer. The B. was formerly common and much in use in Britain, as well as on Blood-hound. The the continent of Europe, but is now rare. poetical histories of Bruce and Wallace describe these heroes as occasionally tracked by blood-hounds, when they were skulking from their enemies. The B. was at a later period much used to guide in the pursuit of cattle carried off in Border raids; it has been frequently used for the pursuit of felons and of deer-stealers; and latterly, in America, for the capture of fugitive slaves, an employment of its powers which has contributed not a little to render its name odious to many philanthropists. Terrible ideas are also, probably, suggested by the name itself, although the B. is by no means a particularly ferocious kind of dog, and when employed in the pursuit of human beings, can be trained to detain them as prisoners without offering to injure them. The true B. is taller and also stronger in proportion, and of more compact figure than a fox-hound, muscular and broad-chested, with large pendulous ears, large pendulous upper lips, and an expression of face which is variously described as 'thoughtful,' noble,' and 'stern.' The original colour is said to have been a deep tan, clouded with black. The colour appears to have been one of the chief distinctions between the B. and the Talbot (q. v.), but it is not improbable that this name was originally common to all blood-hounds. Many interesting anecdotes are recorded of the perseverance and success of blood-hounds in following a track upon which they have been set, even when it has led them through much frequented roads.-The CUBAN B., which is much employed in the pursuit of felons and of fugitive slaves in Cuba, differs considerably from the true B. of Britain and of the continent of Europe, being more fierce and having more resemblance to the bull-dog, and prob4, leaves and fruit of flower-stem, in miniature; b, flower; ably a connection with that or some similar race. c, seed-bud, shaft, and summit; d, seed-bud cut transversely. Many of these dogs were imported into Jamaica in resorted to by gardeners, which is occasionally prac-1796, to be employed in suppressing the Maroon tised also with other bulbous-rooted plants, by cutting (q. v.) insurrection, but the terror occasioned by them across above the middle, upon which a number their arrival produced this effect without their of young bulbs form around the outer edge. actual employment. It is this kind of B. which has The species of B. seem generally to possess poison- been chiefly introduced into the slave-states of ous properties. The inspissated juice of H. toxicarius North America. is used by the natives of South Africa for poisoning their arrows. Many-flowered Blood-flower: BLOOD-ROOT. See GEUM, HÆMODORACEÆ, and SANGUINARIA. BLOODSTONE-BLOW-FLY. BLOODSTONE. See HELIOTROPE. BLOOM, an appearance on paintings resembling in some measure the bloom on certain kinds of fruit, such as peaches, plums, &c. (hence the name), produced, in all probability, by the presence of moisture in the varnish, or on the surface of the painting when the varnish is laid on. The B. destroys the transparency, and is consequently very injurious to the general effect of a picture. It is best prevented by carefully drying the picture and heating the varnish before applying it; and best removed by a sponge dipped in hot camphine, after which a soft brush should be employed to smooth the surface of the picture, which should be finally placed in the sunshine to dry. BLOOMERISM, a new and fanciful fashion of ladies' dress, partly resembling male attire, which arose out of what is termed the Woman's Rights' Movement,' that began to be agitated in the United States about the year 1848. The first Woman's Rights' Convention was held at Worcester, New York, in 1850, under the presidency of Mrs Lucretia Mott. Its object was to advocate for women a more liberal education, training in trades and professions, and generally the social and political privileges possessed by the other sex. At the same date, and in close connection with this movement, arose an agitation for the reform of female attire. Its advocates said, justly enough, that if women were to take their place in the world as fellow-workers with men, they ought not to labour under the disadvantage of having a dress that deprived them of the use of their hands, and required nearly their whole muscular power for its support. In 1849, Mrs Ann Bloomer adopted the costume to which she has given her name, and lectured in New York and elsewhere on its advantages. The Bloomer dress consisted of a jacket with close sleeves, a skirt falling a little below the knee, and a pair of Turkish trousers. Though a few ladies followed the example of Mrs Bloomer, the dress was extremely unpopular, and exposed its adherents to a degree of social martyrdom which the more prudent, timid, or amiable declined to brave. A very elegant modification of the Bloomer dress was achieved by a New York lady-a Polish jacket, trimmed with fur, and a skirt reaching to within a few inches of the ground, avoiding a display of pantaloon, and showing off imerely the trim furred boot, but still sufficiently short to avoid contact with the street; the filthy habit of spitting, which prevails in America, rendering such avoidance peculiarly necessary. The agitation for dress-reform has not died out on the other side the Atlantic. There is in New York a monthly publication, called the Sibyl, devoted to its advocacy, and whose editor, a married lady, as well as several of her contributors, personally illustrate their principles. A wood-cut at the head of the periodical represents the Reform Dress, as it is called. It looks by no means tempting in point of elegance-a fault fatal to its general adoption. The skirt is immoderately short, and the jacket cuts the figure awkwardly in two. The introduction of B. into England, soon after it had sprung up in America, was under such unfavourable auspices, that it failed to gain entrance into respectable society, and speedily disappeared. Still here, as in America, nothing is more frequently talked of, or desired with more apparent fervency, than a dress-reform. The present heavy hooped skirts, injurious to health and fatal to comfort from their weight and amplitude, and liable to be equally dirty and ridiculous, are universally complained of; but the prejudice with which any innovation is sure to be met, discourages every attempt to introduce a reform. BLOOMFIELD, ROBERT, the author of The Farmer's Boy, and other pastoral pieces, born 1766, at Honington, near Bury St Edmund's, was the son of a poor tailor, who died, leaving Robert an infant. His mother with difficulty subsisted by teaching a school, where B. learned to read. At the age of 11 he was hired to a farmer, but ultimately became a shoemaker in London, where he wrote his Farmer's Boy in a poor garret. It was published in lated into a number of languages. He subsequently 1800, had extraordinary popularity, and was transPublished Rural Tales, Wild Flowers, and other pieces. Though efforts were made for him by persons of rank, his health broke down, and he died nearly insane, at Shefford, in Bedfordshire, in 1823. BLOUSE, a name borrowed from the French for that loose, sack-like over-garment which, as worn in England by wagoners and farm-labourers, is called a smock-frock. The English smock-frock is made of coarse and imperfectly bleached linen, and is ornamented, particularly on the breast and shoulders, with plaits and embroidery. In the south of Scotland it is sometimes worn by butchers, and is then blue, as in Germany and France. In Germany, it is frequently tightened to the body by a belt, and is sometimes made of coarse woollen; but France is pre-eminently the country of blouses. There, they are worn universally, not only by the country people, but also by the labouring-classes in towns, not excepting Paris; and so characteristic is this gar ment, that the French populace are often called the blouses.' The white B. is Sunday dress with the working-classes in France, and has also often served as a countersign among the leaders of sections in secret societies. A lighter and neater garment of the sort, usually made of fine but imperfectly bleached linen, and buttoning in front, which the English smock-frock and the original continental B. do not, is much worn by summer tourists. BLOW-FLY (Sarcophaga carnaria), an insect of the order Diptera (two-winged), (q. v.), and of the large family Muscides, of which the common Housefly (q. v.), Flesh-fly (q. v.), &c., are familiar examples. The B. is very similar to these in its general appearance; its body is hairy, the expanse of its wings about one inch, the face silky and yellow, the thorax gray, with three black stripes, the abdomen of a shining blackish brown, which, in certain points of view, assumes a bluish tint, chequered with glittering yellowish spots. One of the distinguish ing characters of the genus is, that the eyes are widely separate in both sexes. The species of this genus are not unfrequently ovoviviparous, the eggs being hatched within the body of the parent. The generic name (Gr. sarx, flesh; phago, to eat) is derived from the circumstance that the larvae of most of the species feed upon the flesh either of dead or of living animals. The B. is common in Britain on heaths, in gardens, &c., and its larvæ are to be found feeding upon meat, the carcases of animals, sometimes upon living earthworms, and too frequently upon sheep, of which it is one of the |