curves somewhat forward and again divides at least once; while the hind prong is of great length undivided, and directed backwards in a manner found in no other deer. As regards general form, the most distinctive feature is the great relative length of the tail, which reaches the hocks, and is donkey-like rather than deer-like in form. The head is long and narrow, with a prominent ridge for the support of the antlers, moderate-sized ears, and a narrow and pointed muzzle. A gland and tuft are present on the skin of the outer side of the upper part of the hind cannon-bone; but, unlike American deer, there is no gland on the inner side of the hock. Another feature by which this species differs from the American deer is the conformation of the bones of the lower part of the fore-leg, which have the same structure as in the red deer group. The coat is of moderate length, but the hair on the neck and throat of the old stags is elongated to form a mane and fringe. Although new-born fawns are spotted, the adults are in the main uniformly coloured; the general tint of the coat at all seasons being reddish tawny with a more or less marked tendency to grey. It has been noticed at Woburn Abbey that the antlers are shed and replaced twice a year.
The true home of this deer has never been ascertained, and probably never will be; all the few known specimens now living being kept in confinement—the great majority in the duke of Bedford’s park at Woburn, Bedfordshire. (R. L.*)
PEREGRINUS PROTEUS (2nd cent. A.D.), Cynic philosopher,
of Parium in Mysia. At an early age he was suspected of
parricide, and was obliged to leave his native place. During
his wanderings he reached Palestine, where he ingratiated himself
with the Christian community, and became its virtual head.
His fanatical zeal and craving for notoriety led to his imprisonment, but the governor of Syria let him go free, to prevent his
posing as a martyr. He then returned to Parium to claim his
paternal inheritance, but finding that the circumstances of his
father’s death were not yet forgotten, he publicly surrendered
all claims to the property in favour of the municipality. He
resumed his wandering life, at first assisted by the Christians,
but having been detected profaning the rites of the Church, he
was excommunicated. During a visit to Egypt he made the
acquaintance of the famous Cynic Agathobulus and joined the
sect. Meeting with little encouragement, he made his way to
Rome, whence he was expelled for insulting the emperor Antoninus
Pius. Crossing to Greece, he finally took up his abode
at Athens. Here he devoted himself to the study and teaching
of philosophy, and obtained a considerable number of pupils,
amongst them Aulus Gellius, who speaks of him in very favourable
terms. But, having given offence by his attacks on Herodes
Atticus and finding his popularity diminishing, he determined
to create a sensation. He announced his intention of immolating
himself on a funeral pyre at the celebration of the Olympian
games in 165, and actually carried it out. Lucian, who was
present, has given a full description of the event.
C. M. Wieland’s Geheime Geschichte des Philosophen Peregrinus Proteus (Eng. trans., 1796) is an attempt to rehabilitate his character. See also Lucian, De morte Peregrini; Aulus Gellius xii. 11; Ammianus Marcellinus xxix.; Philostratus, Vit. Soph. ii. 1, 33; J. Bernays, Lucian und die Kyniker (1875); E. Zeller, “Alexander und Peregrinus,” in his Vortrage und Abhandlungen, ii. (1877).
PEREIRE [Pereira], GIACOBBO RODRIGUEZ (1715–1780), one of the inventors of deaf-mute language, a member of a Spanish-Jewish family, was born at Estremadura, Spain, on the 11th of April 1715. At the age of eighteen he entered a business at Bordeaux. Here he fell in love with a young girl who had been dumb from birth, and henceforth devoted himself to discover a method of imparting speech to deaf-mutes. His first subject was Aaron Baumann, a co-religionist, whom he taught to enunciate the letters of the alphabet, and to articulate certain ordinary phrases. He next devised a sign alphabet for the use of one hand only, and in 1749 he brought his second pupil before the Paris Academy of Sciences, the members of which were astonished at the results he had accomplished In 1759 Pereire was made a member of the Royal Society of London. He died at Paris on the 15th of September 1780.
PEREKOP, a town of Russia, in the government of Taurida, 60 m. S.E. of Kherson, on the isthmus which connects the Crimea
with the Continent, and commanding the once defensive ditch
and dike which cross from the Black Sea to the Sivash (putrid)
lagoon. Pop. about 5000. It was formerly an important
place, with a great transit trade in salt, obtained from salt
lakes in the immediate neighbourhood. Since the opening of
the railway route from Kharkov to Simferopol in the Crimea
Perekop has greatly declined. In ancient times the isthmus
was crossed (about 112 m. south of the present town) by a ditch
which gave the name of Taphros to a Greek settlement. This
line of defence having fallen into decay, a fort was erected and a
new ditch and dike constructed in the 15th century by the
Tatar khan of the Crimea, Mengli Ghirai, and by his son and
successor Sahib Ghirai. The fort, known as Kapu or Or-Kapu,
became the nucleus of the town. In the middle ages Perekop
was known as Tuzla. In 1736 it was captured by the Russians
under Munnich, and again in 1738 under Lascy (Lacy), who
blew up the fort and destroyed a great part of the dike. In
1754 the fort was rebuilt by Krim Ghirei, but the Greek and
Armenian inhabitants of Perekop formed a new settlement
at Armyanskiy Bazar (Armenian Market), 3 m. farther south.
Captured by the Russians in 1771, the town passed into Russian
possession with the rest of the Crimea in 1783.
PEREMPTORY, an adjective adapted from the Roman law term peremptorium edictum, peremptoria exceptio, a decree or plea which put an end to or quashed (Lat. perimere, to destroy) an action, hence decisive, final. A similar use is found in English law in “peremptory challenge,” a challenge to a jury allowed to a prisoner without cause shown, or “peremptory mandamus,” an absolute command. The natural repugnance to a final order has given this word in its ordinary usage a sense of objectionable and intolerant emphasis.
PEREYASLAVL, a town of Russia, in the government of Poltava, 26 m. S.E. of the city of Kiev, at the confluence of the Trubezh and the Alta, which reach the Dnieper 5 m. lower down at the town’s port, the village of Andrushi. Pop. 14,609. Besides the town proper there are three considerable suburbs. Though founded in 993 by Vladimir the Great of Moscow in memory of his signal success over the Turkish Pechenegs, Pereyaslavl has now few remains of antiquity. The town has a trade in grain, salt, cattle and horses, and some manufactures—tallow, wax, tobacco, candles and shoes.
From 1054 Pereyaslavl was the chief town of a separate principality. As a southern outpost it often figures in the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries, and was plundered by the Mongols in 1239. In later times it was one of the centres of the Cossack movement; and in 1628 the neighbourhood of the town was the scene of the extermination of the Polish forces known as “Tara’s Night.” It was by the Treaty of Pereyaslavl that in 1654 the Cossack chieftain Bogdan Chmielnicki acknowledged the supremacy of Tsar Alexis of Russia.
PEREYASLAVL (called Zalyeskiy, or “Beyond the Forest,” to distinguish it from the older town in Poltava after which it was named), one of the oldest and most interesting cities in middle Russia, situated in the government of Vladimir, 45 m. N.E. of Moscow on the road to Yaroslavl, and on both banks of the Trubezh near its entrance into Lake Pleshchéevo. Pop. 8662. Pereyaslavl was formerly remarkable for the number and importance of its ecclesiastical foundations. Among those still standing are the 12th-century cathedral, with ancient wall-paintings and the graves of Demetrius, son of Alexander Nevsky, and other princes, and a church founded by Eudoxia (Euphrosyne), wife of Demetrius Donskoi, in the close of the 14th century. It is by its extensive cotton manufactures that Pereyaslavl is now best known. The fisheries in the lake (20 m. sq. in extent and 175 ft. deep) have long been of great value.
Founded in 1152 by Yuryi Dolgoruki, prince of Suzdal, Pereyaslavl soon began to play a considerable part in the history of the country From 1195 till 1302 it had princes of its own; and the princes of Moscow, to whom it was at the latter date
