Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/327

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eggs (four in number) are almost invisible to the careless or untrained eye unless it should happen to glance directly upon them. The young when first hatched are clothed with mottled down so as closely to resemble a stone and to be overlooked as they squat motionless on the approach of danger. At a distance the plumage of the adult appears to be white and black in about equal proportions, the latter predominating above; but on closer examination nearly all the seeming black is found to be a bottle-green gleaming with purple and copper; and the tail-coverts, both above and below, are seen to be of a bright bay colour that is seldom visible in flight. The crest consists of six or eight narrow and elongated feathers, turned slightly upwards at the end, and is usually carried in a horizontal position, extending in the cock beyond the middle of the back; but it is capable of being erected so as to become nearly vertical. Frequenting (as has been said) parts of the open country so very divergent in character, and as remarkable for the peculiarity of its flight as for that of its cry, the Lapwing is far more often observed in nearly all parts of the British Islands than any other of the group, Limicolæ, to which it belongs. The peculiarity of its flight seems due to the wide and rounded wings it possesses, the steady and ordinarily somewhat slow flapping of which impels the body at each stroke with a manifest though easy jerk. Yet on occasion, as when performing its migrations, or even its almost daily transits from one feeding-ground to another, and still more when being pursued by a Falcon, the speed with which it moves through the air is very considerable; and the passage of a flock of Lapwings, twinkling aloft or in the distance, as the dark and light surfaces of the plumage are alternately presented, is always an agreeable spectacle to those who love a landscape enlivened by its wild creatures. On the ground this bird runs nimbly, and is nearly always engaged in searching for its food, which is wholly animal.

Allied to the Lapwing are several forms that have been placed by ornithologists in the genera Hoplopterus, Chettusia, Lobivanellus, Sarciophorus, and so forth; but the respective degree of affinity they bear to one another is not rightly understood, and space would prohibit any attempt at here expressing it. In some of them the hind toe, which has already ceased to have any function in the Lapwing, is wholly wanting. In others the wings are armed with a tubercle or even a sharp spur on the carpus. Few have any occipital crest, but several have the face ornamented by the outgrowth of a fleshy lobe or lobes. With the exception of North America, they are found in most parts of the world, but perhaps the greater number in Africa. Europe has three species – Hoplopterus spinosus, the Spur-winged Plover, and Chettusia gregaria and C. leucura; but the first and last are only stragglers from Africa and Asia. (A. N.)

LÁR, a city of Persia, capital of Láristán, in 27 30 N. lat., 53 58 E. long., 174 miles from Shíráz, and 127 from the coast at Mogu Bay. Lár stands at the foot of a mountain range in an extensive plain covered with palm trees. The crest of a hill immediately behind the town is crowned by the ruins of a castle formerly deemed impreg nable. Lár was once a flourishing place, but a large portion is now in ruins, and the population is reduced to about 12,000. There are still some good buildings, of which the most prominent is the bazaar, said to be the finest in Persia, and resembling that of Shíráz, but considerably larger. The governor's residence stands in the centre of the town, and is surrounded by strong walls flanked with towers. There is also an outer moat filled by a canal of recent structure, which also serves to supply the numerous cisterns when the rain water fails. Lár is noted for its manufacture of muskets and cloth.

LARCENY. See THEFT.

LARCH (from the German Lerche; Latin, larix), a name applied to a small group of coniferous trees, of which the common larch of Europe is taken as the type. The members of the genus Larix are distinguished from the firs, with which they were formerly placed, by their deciduous leaves, scattered singly, as in Abies, on the young shoots of the season, but on all older branchlets growing in whorl-like tufts, each surrounding the extremity of a rudimentary or abortive branch; from cedars (Cedrus) they differ, not only in the deciduous leaves, but in the cones, the scales of which are thinner towards the apex, and are persistent, remaining attached long after the seeds are discharged. The trees of the genus are closely allied in botanic features, as well as in general appearance, so that it is sometimes difficult to assign to them determinate specific characters, and the limit between species and variety is not always very accurately defined. Nearly all are natives of Europe, or the northern plains and mountain ranges of Asia and North America, though one occurs only on the Himalaya; a somewhat aberrant form, usually placed in a separate sub-genus, is peculiar to north China and Japan.

Branchlet of Larch (Larix europæa).

The common larch (L. europæa) is, when grown in perfection, a stately tree with tall erect trunk, gradually tapering from root to summit, and horizontal branches springing at irregular intervals from the stem, and in old trees often becoming more or less drooping, but rising again towards the extremities; the branchlets or side shoots, very slender and pendulous, are pretty thickly studded with the whorls of narrow linear leaves, of a peculiar bright light green when they first appear in the spring, but becoming of a deeper hue when mature. The yellow stamen-bearing flowers are in sessile, nearly spherical catkins; the fertile ones vary in colour, from red or purple to greenish-white, in different varieties; the erect cones, which remain long on the branches, are above an inch in length and oblong-ovate in shape, with reddish-brown scales somewhat waved on the edges, the lower bracts usually rather longer than the scales. The tree flowers in April or May, and the winged seeds are shed the following autumn. When standing in an open space, uncrowded by neighbouring trees,