ORATORY 36 ORCHOMENOS ORATORY, an apartment in a private house or building designed for domestic worship. It differs from a chapel inas- much as it contains no altar, nor may mass be performed in it. ORBICULINA, a genus of minute f or- aminifers, found alive in tropical seas, as also fossil in the Tertiaries. They have their name from their flattened globular shape. ORBIT, in anatomy, the bony cavity in which the eye is situated. In astron- omy, the path of a primary planet in its revolution round the sun, or a sec- ondary one in its revolution round the primary. In ornithology, the skin which surrounds the eye of a bird. ORCHARD, an inclosure devoted to the culture of fruit trees, especially the apple, the pear, the plum, the peach, and the cherry. The most suitable position for an orchard is a declivity lying well exposed to the sun and sheltered from the colder winds. Fruit cultivation is carried on most extensively on the con- tinent of Europe and the United States. The chief fruit-growing States are New York, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Penn- sylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, Mary- land, Indiana, California and Oregon. ORCHARDSON, WILLIAM QUIL- LER, an English genre painter; born in Edinburgh, in 1835, where subsequently he studied under Scott Lauder at the Trustees' Academy; became A. R. A. in 1868, R. A. in 1877, and received a Medal of Honor at the Paris Exposition, in 1878. Best knovim among his highly- popular pictures are "The Challenge" (1865), "The Duke's Antechamber" (1869). "Casus Belli" (1870), "The Protector" (1871), "The Bill of Sale" (1875), "The Queen of the Swords" (1877), "A Social Eddy" (1878), "Hard Hit" (1879), "On Board H. M. S. 'Beller- ophon,' July, 23, 1815" (1880; bought by the Chantrey Bequest). "Marriage de Convenance" (1884), "After" (1886), "The Salon of Madame Recamier" (1885), "The First Cloud" (1887), and "The Young Duke" (1889). He died April 13, 1910. ORCHELLA, name of several species of Roccella, a genus of lichens, originally brought from the Levant, and employed from very early times as a dye agent. Large quantities are gathered in the maritime rocks of the Canary and Cape Verde Islands. A purple and a red dye, known as orchil or archil, are prepared from them. ORCHESTRA, or ORCHESTER, in Greek and Roman theaters, the semi- circular area, included by the straight line which bounded the stage in front of the first row of the ascending steps. In the Greek theater this space was always occupied by the chorus. In Roman comedy there was no chorus; and in Roman tragedies, both the chorus and the musicians were placed upon the stage itself, the whole of the orchestra being reserved for the senators. In modern theaters, etc. : ( 1 ) The place where the band, or band and chorus, are placed in modern concert-rooms, theaters, etc. (2) The collection of instruments of varied compass and quality of tone which con- stitutes a full band. There are no or- chestral scores earlier than the latter part of the 16th century, so all state- ments as to concerted instrumental music before that time are wholly conjectural. ORCHESTRIOIT, an instrument of the organ type devised to reproduce the play- ing of all the wired instruments^ of the orchestra. The first orchestrion is claimed as the invention of a native of Karlsruhe, Baden, named Welte, whose son made the instrument more commer- cially possible by the use of paper rolls as reed pipes. In recent years the or- chestrion has been still f urttier developed for use in places of amusement. ORCHIDACE.ffi, orchids; the typical order of the alliance Archidales. It con- sists of perennial herbs or shrubs, with fibrous, fasciculated, fleshy, or tuberlike roots. All the species are terrestrial in temperate latitudes; in the tropics many are epiphytes, growing on trees. They are remarkable for their irregular flow- ers, often very beautiful, sometimes very frag:rant. Found in nearly all climates. Known genera 400; species 3,000. Di- vided into seven tribes: Malaxeae, Epi- dendreas, Vandea, Ophreae, ArethusesSj, Neotteae, and Cypripedeae. ORCHIS, the typical genus of the or- der Orchidacese. It is one of the tribe Ohreae or Orphrydese, and the family Serapiadss. The tubers are globose, ovoid, or palmate ; the lip is spurred ; the glands of the stalks of the pollen masses contained in a common little pouch. Chiefly grown in the N. temperate zone. About 80 kinds are known. ORCHOMENOS, an ancient city of Bceoti^, the capital of the kingdom of the Minyse; situated at the N. W. corner of Lake Copias, where it is joined by the Cephissus, and extended from the marshy edges of the lake up the face of a steep rock hill, on which stood the acropolis. It sent 30 ships to the Trojan war, and at a later date became a member of the Boeotian confederacy. Its government
