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and by the common people of Germany, mattksrtu It i? all over of a reddifh or rudely hue, except the belly, which is white ; on the back the colour is more dufky, and is va- riegated with black fpots. On the wings the colour is much fairer and clearer, Tome of the longer feathers of them ap- proaching to the colour of the painters red earth, called reddle. It is common in watery places, in many parts of Germany and Italy. Ray's Ornithology, p. 226. MATO, in natural hiftory, the name of a tree growing both in the Eaft and Weft Indies, and bearing a fruit of the fize of an apple, and covered with a thick and tough red fkin. This is called by fome, the wild mcnigoujian. Its fruit per- fectly refembles that of the mangouftan in figure, but is not eatable. Mem. Acad. Par. 1699. MATORIUM, a word ufed by fome of the chemical writers
to exprefs the gum ammoniacum, and by others galbanum. MATRASS (CycL)— The Matrafs, ufed in aflaying, is a vef- fel of very pure and tranfparent glafs, not too thick at the bottom, which would make it apt to burft in the fire. It is, for this ufe, to be about eight or ten inches high, and to have an orifice fcarce fo much as half an inch wide, left the mat- ters contained in it, being in a violent ftate of ebullition, ihould either rife over the mouth of the veflel, or at leaft be partly thrown out in form of fmall drops, like a thin rain, which drops always carry fome of the metal with them. The bottom is capacious enough, when it will hold an ounce or two of aqua fortis, and the height of the veflel is of farther ufe in making a greater repercuflion of the fumes. The mouth ought alfo to be turned backwards, in form of a broad lip, that the folutions, when poured out, may not run down the fides of the veflel. Cramer, Art Afl". p. 68. MATRICARIA, Feverfew, in botany, the name of a genus of plants, the characters of which are thefe : The flower is naturally of the radiated kind. Its difk is compofed of flof- Cules, and its outer circle of femi-flofcules, all placed on the embryo feeds, and contained in one common cup, which is of a fquamrnofe ftrudlure, and hemifpheric figure. The em- trios finally become feeds of an oblong figure, affixed to the thalamus of the flower. To this it is to be added, that the flowers always grow many together, in a fort of clufters, and the leaves are divided ino fomewhat regular fegments, ftand- ding in pairs over againft one another. The fpecies of Feverfew, enumerated by Mr. Tournefort, are thefe: 1. The common garden Feverfew. 2. The gar- den Feverfew, with red ftalks. 3. The wild Feverfew, with flowers altogether yellow. 4. The fweet-fcented Feverfew. 5. The double-flowered Feverfew. 6. The white-flowered Feverfew, with three feries of femi-flofcules. -j. The Fever- few, with fiftular petals, 8. The curled-leav'd Feverfew, with the petals of the flower all fiftulous. 9. The Feverfew, with the marginal petals of the flower flat,, the inner ones fiftular. 10. The naked-flower'd Feverfew. 11. The tan- zy-leav'd Feverfew, with large flowers, and umbilicated feeds. 12. The tanzy-leav'd Feverfew, with fmaller flowers, and umbilicated feeds. 13. The buphthalmum-leav'd Py- renean Feverfew. 12. The American Feverfew, with leaves like the ambrofta, and with fmall white flowers. Toum. Lift, p. 493.
Feverfezv has always been allowed one of the firft places among the hyfteric and uterine plants. It is prefcribed in powder from a fcruple to half a dram the dofe ; but the much better way is in a flight infufion made in the manner of tea. Taken in this eafy manner for a continuance of time, it will bring the menfes, tho' fubjecT: to be interrupted and irregular, to their true period ; and will remove a number of complaints, the natural confequence of fuch an irregularity. It is alfo an agreeable carminative and bitter. It ftrengthens the ftomach, and difperfes flatulences ; and the exprefled juice is faid to kill worms. Some like wife commend it in diforders of the head, and in all nephritic complaints. Hoff- man gives it great praifes, ufed as a febrifuge. We ufed to keep a fimple water, and fyrup of Feverfew in the fhops ; but at prefent they are wholly difufed, and the dried herb only kept ready for fomentations, and fometimes as an ingredient in clyfters.
Many fpecies of this plant are cultivated in gardens, for the beauty of their flowers. They are propagated by fowing them in March, on a bed of light earth ; when they are come up, they mould be tranfplanted out into nurfery beds, at about eight inches afunder ; and in the middle of May they fhould be removed intotheflower beds, wherethey are to ftand. They flower in July and Auguft ; but they mould not be permitted to feed, which always weakens, and often deftroys the roots : So that the ftalks fhould be cut down to the ground, when the flower decays. Miller's Gardener's Diet. MATRIMONY. See the articles Espousals and Mar- riage. MATRISYLVA, in botany, a name by which fome authors call the common honey-fuckle, or wood, bind, aud others the wood-ruffe. MATRIX, {CycL) in anatomy. See the articles Womb,
Uterus, Foetus, &c. CycL and SuppL Matrix Suedni, in natural hiitory, a name given by Hart- Su ppl. Vol. II.
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man, and fome other authors, to a fort of fubftance refem- bliflg foffile wood, or die barks of trees, common m the chits of the ihores of the Baltic, and found in diegina all over Pruffia. This is the bed in which the foffile amber of that kingdom is lodged, and it is fuppofed to have no fmall fhare in the production or formation of that foffile. The workmen who dig for amber always make this their guide, and follow the veins of it, never fearching any where elfe for the amber. The very furface of this foffile fubftance is often covered with a kind of amber; but this is poor, and of no value. Many authors have fuppofed this cortical or wood- like fubftance to be rear foffile wood j but this is an error. The maffes of it are too large, ever to have been trees, and their fibres run often to twenty, thirty, or forty foot diame- ter, in the fame unbroken compages. It differs from trees alfo in this, that as they have been form'd by fucceffive addi- tions of matter by vegetation, their whole bulk is compofed of circular ftrata, if they may be fo called, or additions of coats round a medulla or pith ; but in this foffile wood, as fome have fuppofed it to be, there is no pith or medulla, no addition of circular coats, but the fame valt mafs of it is con- tinued to a vaft length and breadth, in the manner of an earthy ftratum, and is compofed of thin lamina:, or plates laid flatwife one over another. Were this fubftance really formed of the bodies of trees, we fhould alfo find in it that variety of fibres which the feveral parts of wood are known to confift of; but nothing of this kind appears, we fee the whole riiafs, confiding of abfolutely the fume toped fibres ; and there never was found, in any of this fubftance, the leaf!: refemblance of a knot or leaf, or the pedicle of a leaf, as might well be expefied, had leaves ever grown from it. Phil, Tranf. N°. 248. p. 14.
The foffile wood, which is truly fuch, and has been once vegetable matter, whatever part of the world it is found in, agrees in the fame general marks of diftinction and knots, and other evident proofs of its having been once vegetable are found in all of it ; but this Matrix of amber, whether found in Pruffia, Denmark, or elfewhere, is dill of the fame kind, and fhews none of thefe chars.2criftic marks of wood. See the article Succinum. MATTS, on board a (hip, a kind of broad, thick clouts, wove out of fpun yarn, finnet, or thrums ; and ufed to preferve the main and fore-yards from galling againft the mafts at the ties, and at the gunnel of the loof. They alfo ferve to keep the clew of the (ail from galling there ; as alfo to fave the clews of the fore-fail from doing fo at the beak- head and boltfprit. MATTAGESS, in zoology, the Englifh name of the larger fpecies of the lanius or butcher bird. The word Mattagefs is borrowed from the Savoyards, and fignifies the murdering pye ; and has been given it from its favage difpofition, and its refemblance to the magpye in the fhape of its tail.
It is barely of the bignefs of a thrufh ; its beak is moderately long, black, and hooked at the end, but ftrait all the way to that. Its tongue is bifid and hairy, and there are feveral black and fhort briftles at the top of the beak. Its head, back, and rump, are grey. Its chin and belly white, and its throat and breaft variegated with dufky Breaks. Its feet and legs are black. It is very common in Germany, and is fometimes feen in the northern parts of England, but with us is not very frequent. It lives among lowbufhes, and builds in them. Its neft is made of mofs, wool, and foft herbs, and the tender branches of heath. It has feven young ones at a brood, which are of a greenifh colour, and very little refera- ble their parent. It feeds on thrufhes, and fmaller birds, and is a very terrible deftroyer among them. Ray's Orni- thology, p. 53. _ MA El HIOLA, in botany, the name of a genus of plants, the characters of which are thefe : The cup is a cylindric pe- rianthium, is very fhort, erect, and undivided, and re- mains after the flower is fallen ; the flower is monopetalous, and confifts of a very long tube, which dilates, by degrees, into a large and wide mouth, with a fmooth or undivided edge. The ftamina are five pointed filaments, fhorter than the Bower. The apices are fimple. The germen of the pi- ftil is globofe, and is placed beneath the cup. The ftyle is very {lender, and of the length of the cup. The ftigma is large and obtufe. The fruit is a drupa of a globofe figure, containing only one cell, and crowned with the cup. The feed is a globofe nut orfitone, containing a kernel of the' fame' globofe form. Plutnler^ 6. Limitei Gen. PI. p. 510. Ponteder. p. 39. MATTKEM, in zoology, a common name in Germany for
the matJmehzel. See the article Matkneltzel. MATUITUI, in zoology, the name of a Brafilian bird, of the turdus or thrufh kind, and of the bignefs of the common ftarling. Its neck is fhort ; its breaft large and ftrong ; its legs fhort, and its beak a little hooked at the end, and of a fine high red. Its head, neck, back, wings and tail, are all of a fine deep brown, variegated with fpots of a pale yellow. Its throat is yellow, and .its breaft and belly white, a little fpotted with brown, Its thighs are grey. Margrave's H jF*- Hift.
