4 m., with a total fall of about 40 ft., and then, after passing two
minor reefs, reaches the Atures rapids, where it plunges through a
succession of gorges for a distance of about 6 m., winding among
confused masses of granite boulders, and falling about 30 ft. At
the mouth of the Meta it is about 1 m. wide, but as it flows northwards
it increases its width until, at the point where it receives its
Apure affluent, it is over 2 m. wide in the dry season and about
7 m. in floods. It rises 32 ft. at Cariben, but at the Angostura, or
narrows, where the river is but 800 ft. wide, the difference between
high and low river is 50 ft., and was even 60 in 1892.
The Orinoco finds its way to the ocean through a delta of about 700 sq. m. area, so little above sea level that much of it is periodically flooded. The river is navigable for large steamers up to the raudal or rapid of Cariben, 700 m. from the sea, and to within 6 m. of the mouth of the Meta. Maintaining its eastern course from the Apure, the main stream finds its way along the southern side of the delta, where it is called the Corosimi river, and enters the sea at the Boca Grande; but in front of the Tortola island, at the beginning of the Corosimi and 100 m. from the sea, it throws northwards to the Gulf of Paria another great arm which, about 100 m. long, and known as the Rio Vagre, bounds the western side of the delta. En route to the gulf the Vagre sends across the delta, east and north, two caños or canals of considerable volume, called the Macareo and Cuscuino. The delta is also cut into many irregular divisions by other canals which derive their flow from its great boundary rivers, the Corosimi and Vagre, and its numerous islands and vast swamps are covered with a dense vegetation. The Boca Grande outlet is the deepest, and is the main navigable entrance to the Orinoco at all seasons, the muddy bar usually maintaining a depth of 16 ft.
The Spanish conquistador and his descendants have not been a blessing to the basin of the Orinoco. All they can boast of is the destruction of its population and products, so that the number of inhabitants of one of the richest valleys in the world is less to-day than it was four centuries ago. The entire river trade centres upon Ciudad Bolivar, on the right bank of the Orinoco, 373 m. above its mouth. The only other river port of any importance is San Fernando, on the Apure. It is a stopping-point for the incipient steamer traffic of the valley, which is principally confined to the Apure and lower Orinoco. It occupies, however, but a few small steam craft. There is steam connexion between Ciudad Bolivar and the island of Trinidad. Cattle are carried by vessels from the valley to the neighbouring foreign colonies, and a few local steamers do a coasting trade between the river and the Caribbean ports of Venezuela. A transit trade with Colombia, via the Meta river, has been carried on by two small steamers, but subject to interruptions from political causes. (G. E. C.)
ORIOLE (O. Fr. Oriol, Lat. aureolus), the name once applied to a bird, from its golden colouring—the Oriolus galbula of Linnaeus—but now commonly used in a much wider sense. The golden oriole, which is the type of the Passerine family Oriolidae, is a far from uncommon spring-visitor to the British Islands, but has very rarely bred there. On the continent of Europe it is a well-known if not an abundant bird, and its range in summer extends so far to the east as Irkutsk, while in winter it is found in Natal and Damaraland. In India it is replaced by a closely allied form, O. kundoo, the mango-bird, chiefly distinguishable by the male possessing a black streak behind as well in front of the eye; and both in Asia and Africa are several other species more or less resembling O. galbula, but some depart considerably from that type, assuming a black head, or even a glowing crimson, instead of the ordinary yellow colouring, while others again remain constant to the dingy type of plumage which characterizes the female of the more normal form. Among these last are the aberrant species of the group Mimetes or Mimeta, belonging the Australian region, respecting which A. R. Wallace pointed out, first in the Zoological Society’s Proceedings (1863, pp. 26-28), and afterwards in his Malay Archipelago (ii. pp. 150-153), the very curious signs of “mimicry” (see Honey-eater). It is a singular circumstance that this group Mimeta first received its name from P. P. King (Survey, &c. of Australia, ii. 417) under the belief that the birds composing it belonged to the family Meliphagidae, which had assumed the appearance of orioles, whereas Wallace’s investigations tend to show that the imitation (unconscious, of course) is on the part of the latter. The external similarity of the Mimeta and the Tropidorhynchus of the island of Bouru, one of the Moluccas, is perfectly wonderful, and has again and again deceived some of the best ornithologists, though the birds are structurally far apart. Another genus which has been referred to the Oriolidae, and may here be mentioned, is Sphecotheres, peculiar to the Australian Region, and distinguishable from the more normal orioles by a bare space round the eye. Orioles are shy and restless birds, frequenting gardens and woods, and living on insects and fruit. The nest is pocket-shaped, of bark, grass and fibres, and the eggs are white or salmon-coloured with dark spots. The “American orioles” (see Icterus) belong to a different passerine family, the Icteridae. (A. N.)
ORION (or Oarion), in Greek mythology, son of Hyrieus
(Eponymus of Hyria in Boeotia), or of Poseidon, a mighty hunter
of great beauty and gigantic strength, perhaps corresponding
to the “wild huntsman” of Teutonic mythology. He is also
sometimes represented as sprung from the earth. He was the
favourite of Eos, the dawn-goddess, who loved him and carried
him off to Delos; but the gods were angry, and would not be appeased till Artemis slew him with her arrows (Odyssey, v. 121).
According to other accounts which attribute Orion’s death
to Artemis, the goddess herself loved him and was deceived
by the angry Apollo into shooting him by mistake; or he paid
the penalty of offering violence to her, or of challenging her
to a contest of quoit-throwing (Apollodorus i. 4; Hyginus,
Poet, astron. ii. 34; Horace, Odes, iii. 4, 71). In another legend
he was blinded by Oenopion of Chios for having violated his
daughter Merope; but having made his way to the place where
the sun rose, he recovered his sight (Hyginus, loc. cit.; Parthenius,
Erotica, 20). He afterwards retired to Crete, where he lived
the life of a hunter with Artemis; but having threatened to
exterminate all living creatures on the island, he was killed by
the bite of a scorpion sent by the earth-goddess (Ovid, Fasti,
v. 537). In the lower world his shade is seen by Odysseus
driving the wild beasts before him as he had done on earth
{Odyssey, xi. 572). After his death he was changed into the
constellation which is called by his name. It took the form
of a warrior, wearing a girdle of three stars and a lion’s skin,
and carrying a club and a sword. When it rose early it was
a sign of summer; when late, of winter and stormy weather;
when it rose about midnight it heralded the season of vintage.
See Küentzle, Über die Sternsagen der Griechen (1897), and his article in Roscher’s Lexikon; he shows that in the oldest legend Orion the constellation and Orion the hero are quite distinct, without deciding which was the earlier conception. The attempt sometimes made to attribute an astronomical origin to the myths connected with his name is unsuccessful, except in the case of Orion’s pursuit of Pleione and her daughters (see Pleiades) and his death from the bite of the scorpion; see also C. O. Müller, Kleine Deutsche Schriften, ii. (1848); O. Gruppe, Griechische Mythologie, ii. pp. 945, 952; Preller-Robert, Griechische Mythologie (1894), pp. 448-454; Grimm, Teutonic Mythology (Eng. trans., 1883), ii. p. 726, iii. p. 948.
In Astronomy.—The constellation Orion is mentioned by Homer (Il. xviii. 486, xxii. 29; Od. v. 274), and also in the Old Testament (Amos v. 8, Job ix. 9). The Hebrew name for Orion also means “fool,” in reference perhaps to a mythological story of a “foolhardy, heaven-daring rebel who was chained to the sky for his impiety” (Driver). For the Assyrian names see Constellation. Ptolemy catalogued 38 stars, Tycho Brahe 42 and Hevelius 62. Orion is one of the most conspicuous constellations. It consists of three stars of the 1st magnitude, four of the 2nd, and many of inferior magnitude. α Orionis, or Betelgeuse, is a bright, yellowish-red star of varying magnitude (0·5 to 1·4, generally 0·9). β Orionis or Regel is a 1st magnitude star. γ Orionis or Bellatrix, and κ Orionis are stars of the 2nd magnitude. These four stars, in the order α, β, γ, κ, form an approximate rectangle. Three collinear stars ζ, ε and δ Orionis constitute the “belt of Orion”; of these ε, the central star, is of the 1st magnitude, δ of the 2nd, while ζ Orionis is a fine double star, its components having magnitudes 2 and 6; there is also a faint companion of magnitude 10. σ Orionis, very close to ζ Orionis, is a very fine multiple star, described by Sir William Herschel as two sets of treble stars; more stars have been revealed by larger telescopes. θ Orionis is
