Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 09.djvu/61

SPONTINI, GASPARO 35 SPORE (founded on "Lalla Rookh"), "Alcidor," and "Agnes of Hohenstauffen," were produced with great splendor. Spontini continued to reside as first chapel mas- ter in Berlin till the death of the Mng in 1840. The latter period of his so- journ at Berlin was embittered by pro- fessional disputes; and in 1842 he repaired to Paris, where in 1839 he had been elected one of the five members of the Academie des Beaux Arts. He died in Majolatti, Jan. 14, 1851. SPOONBILL, in ichthyology, the genus Polyodon. In ornithology, any individual of the genus Platalea; specifically P. leu- co7'odia, the white spoonbill, found over the greater part of Europe and Asia and the N. of Africa. The adult male is about 32 inches long; plumage white with pale pink tinge; at the junction of the neck with the breast there is a band of buffy yellow; the naked skin on the SPOONBILL throat is yellow ", eggs and feet black ; bill about eight inches long, very much flat- tened and grooved at the base, the ex- panded portion yellow, the rest black. There is a white occipital crest in both sexes. The spoonbill possesses no power of modulating its voice. The windpipe is bent on itself, like the figure 8, the coils applied to each other and held in place by a thin membrane. This pecu- liarity does not exist in young birds. The roseate spoonbill (P. ajaja) , a na- tive of the United States, has rose-col- ored plumage. SPOONER, CHARLES HORACE, an American educator, born in Charleston, N. H., in 1858. He was educated at Nor- wich University. From 1879 to 1889 he was instructor in various preparatory schools. From 1889 to 1891 he was principal of schools in Fitchburg, Mass., and from 1891 to 1904, instructor of mathematics at the Manual Training School of Washington University. In 1904 he became president of Norwich University, Northfield, Vt., retiring in 1915, being made president emeritus in the following year. SPOONER. JOHN COIT, a United States Senator from Wisconsin, born in Lawrenceburg, Ind., in 1843. He grad- uated from the University of Wisconsin in 1864. He fought in the Civil War, and rose to the rank of major. In 1867 he was admitted to the bar and for many years practiced in Wisconsin. He served as a member of the State Assembly in 1872, and in 1885 was elected to the United States Senate, serving until 1891. He was re-elected in 1897 and retained his seat until 1907, when he resigned to take up the practice of law in New York City. He was greatly distinguished as a lawyer and as an authority on inter- national law. During his service in the Senate, he was recognized as one of its strongest members. In 1898 he was a member of the British-American Joint High Commission. He died in 1919. SPORADES, the general name for a group of small islands in the Grecian Archipelago, lying to the E. of the Cyclades. They belonged formerly partly to Greece and partly to Turkey. The principal are Scio, or Chios, Samos, Cos, Rhodes, Lesbos, and Patmos. By the Treaty of Peace with Turkey the islands were allotted to Italy, but they had to be ceded to Greece, with the exception of Rhodes, in the signing of the Treaty. SPORE, the reproductive body in a cryptogam, which differs from a seed in being composed simply of cells and not containing an embryo. Called also spor- ules. Applied also to the reproductive bodies produced either singly or at the tips of the fruit-bearing threads in fungi. Plants reproduce themselves in two different ways, "vegetatively" or "truly." The vegetative mode of repro- duction is merely a continuous growth of parts already formed. It is quite com- mon in nature. Sometimes entire buds separate from the parent plant and pro- duce independent plants. This happens, for example, with some of the buds in the axils of the leaves of Lilium bulbi- ferum. Sometimes entire pieces of a creeping stem separate from the main stem and begin an independent life. This happens in the case of the straw- berry plant. Artificially also a vegeta- tive mode of reproduction is easily