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cited, reference is made to almost every important publication on the subject of migration, which renders a notice of its very extensive literature needless here, and a pretty full bibliographical list is given in Giebel’s Thesaurus ornithologiae (i. 146–155). Yet mention may be made of Schlegel’s Over het trekken der Vogels (Harlem, 1828); Hodgson’s “On the Migration of the Natatores and Grallatores as observed at Kathmandu” in Asiatic Researches (xviii. 122-128), and Marcel de Serres’s Des Causes des migrations des animaux et particulièrement des oiseaux et des poissons (Harlem, 1842). This last, though one of the largest publications on the subject, is one of the least satisfactory. S. F. Baird’s excellent treatise “On the Distribution and Migrations of North American Birds,” Am. Journ. Sc. and Arts (2nd ser. 1866), pp. 78–90, 187–192, 337-347; reprinted Ibis 1867, pp. 257–293. N. A. Severzoff, “Etudes sur le passage des oiseaux dans l’Asie centrale,” Bull. Soc. Nat. (Moscow, 1880), pp. 234–287; Menzbier, “Die Zu strassen der Vögel im europäischen Russland,” op. cit. (1885, pp. 291–369; Palmén, Referat über den Stand der Kenntniss des Vogelzuges, Intern. Ornith. Congr., Budapest, 1891; W. W. Cooke and C. H. Merriam, Report on Bird Migration in the Mississippi Valley, U.S. Dep. Agric.-Economic Ornithol., publ. 2 (Washington, 1888); Gaetke, Die Vogelwarte Helgoland (Braunschweig, 1891). In English: Heligoland as an Ornithological Observatory (Edinburgh, 1895); A. Newton, article “Migration,” Dict. Birds (1893).  (H. F. G.) 


MIGUEL, MARIA EVARIST (1802–1866), usually known as Dom Miguel, whose name is chiefly associated with his pretensions to the throne of Portugal, was the third son of King John VI. of Portugal, and of Carlota Joaquina, one of the Spanish Bourbons; he was born at Lisbon on the 26th of October 1802. In 1807 he accompanied his parents in their flight to Brazil, where he grew up an uneducated and fanatical debauchee; in 1821, on his return to Europe, it is said that he had not yet learned to read. In 1822 his father swore fidelity to the new Portuguese constitution which had been proclaimed in his absence; and this led Carlota Joaquina, who was an absolutist of the extremest Bourbon type, and hated her husband, to seek his dethronement in favour of Miguel her favourite son. The insurrections which ensued (see Portugal) resulted in her imprisonment and the exile of Miguel (1824), who spent a short time in Paris and afterwards lived in Vienna, where he came under the teaching of Metternich. On the sudden death of John VI. in May 1826, Pedro of Brazil, his eldest son, renounced the crown in favour of his daughter Maria da Gloria, on the understanding that she should become the wife of Miguel. The last named accordingly swore allegiance to Pedro, to Maria, and to the constitution which Pedro had introduced, and on this footing was appointed regent in July 1827. He arrived in Lisbon in February 1828, and, regardless of his promises, dissolved the new Cortes in March; having called together the old Cortes, with the support of the reactionary party of which his mother was the ruling spirit, he got himself proclaimed sole legitimate king of Portugal, in July. His private life was characterized by the wildest excesses, and he used his power to oppose all forms of liberalism.

The public opinion of Europe became more and more actively hostile to his reign, and after the occupation of Oporto by Dom Pedro in 1832, the destruction of Miguel’s fleet by Captain (afterwards Sir Charles) Napier off Cape St Vincent in 1833, and the victory of Saldanha at Santarem in 1834, Queen Christina of Spain recognized the legitimate sovereignty of Maria, and in this was followed by France and England. Dom Miguel capitulated at Evora on the 29th of May 1834, renouncing all pretensions to the Portuguese throne. He lived for some time at Rome, where he enjoyed papal recognition, but afterwards retired to Bronnbach, in Baden, where he died on the 14th of November 1866.


MIHRAB, a term in Mahommedan architecture given to the niche which in a mosque indicates the direction of Mecca, towards which the Moslems turn when praying.


MIKADO (Japanese for “exalted gate”), the poetical title associated by foreign countries with the sovereign of Japan; the japanese title, corresponding to “emperor,” is tenno, the term kotei being used of his function in relation to external affairs. By the constitution of 1889, the emperor of Japan transferred a large part of his former powers as absolute monarch to the representatives of the people, but as head of the empire he appoints the ministers, declares war, makes peace and concludes treaties, acting generally as a constitutional sovereign but with all the personal authority attaching to his august position. The history of the mikados goes back to very early times, but from 1600 to 1868 the real power was in the hands of the shoguns, who nevertheless were in ceremonial theory always successively invested with their authority by the mikado. The revolution of 1867 restored the real power into the mikado’s hands. (See Japan: History; and Mutsu Hito.)


MIKIRS, a hill tribe of India, occupying two or three detached tracts in Nowgong and Sibsagar districts of Eastern Bengal and Assam, known as the Mikir hills. In 1901 their total number was returned as 87,056. Mikir is the name given to them by the Assamese; they call themselves Arleeng, which means “man” in general. They have long settled down to agriculture, and are distinguished from the tribes around them by the absence of savagery. Their language, which has been studied by missionaries, seems to connect them with the Kuki-Chin stock on the Burmese frontier.

See Sir C. Lyall, The Mikirs (1908).


MIKLOSICH, FRANZ VON (1813–1891), Austrian philologist, was born at Luttenberg, Styria, on the 29th of November 1813. He graduated at the university at Gratz as a doctor of philosophy, and was for a time professor of philosophy there. In 1838 he went to Vienna, where he took the degree' of doctor of law. He devoted himself, however, to the study of Slavonic languages, abandoned the law, and obtained a post in the imperial library, where he remained from 1844 to 1862. In the former year he published a noteworthy review of Bopp’s Comparative Grammar, and this began a long series of works of immense erudition which completely revolutionized the study of Slavonic languages. In 1849 Miklosich was appointed to the newly created chair of Slavonic philology at the university of Vienna, and he occupied it until 1886. He became a member of the Academy of Vienna, which appointed him secretary of its historical and philosophical section, a member of the council of public instruction and of the upper house, and correspondent of the French Academy of Inscription. His numerous writings deal not only with the Slav languages, but with Rumanian, Albanian, Greek, and the language of the gypsies. Miklosich died on the 7th of March 1891.


MILAN (Ital. Milano, Ger. Mailand, anc. Mediolanum, q.v.), a city of Lombardy, Italy, capital of the province of Milan, 93 m. by rail E.N.E. of Turin. Pop. (1881), 321,839; (1906), 560,613. It is the seat of an archbishop, the headquarters of the II. army corps, the chief financial centre of Italy and the wealthiest manufacturing and commercial town in the country. It stands on the little river Olona, near the middle of the Lombard plain, 400 ft. above sea-level.

The plain around Milan is extremely fertile, owing at once to the richness of the alluvial soil deposited by the Po, Ticino, Olona and Adda, and to the excellent system of irrigation. Seen from the top of the cathedral, the plain presents the appearance of a vast garden divided into square plots by rows of mulberry or poplar trees. To the east this plain stretches in an unbroken level, as far as the eye can follow it, towards Venice and the Adriatic; on the southern side the line of the Apennines from Bologna to Genoa closes the view; to the west rise the Maritime, Cottian and Graian Alps, with Monte Viso as their central point; while northward are the Pennine, Helvetic and Rhaetian Alps, of which Monte Rosa, the Saasgrat and Monte Leone are the most conspicuous features. In the plain itself lie many small villages; and here and there a larger town like Monza or Saronno, or a great building like the Certosa of Pavia, makes a white point upon the greenery. The climate is changeable and trying; in summer it is intensely hot, in winter very cold. Snow is often seen, and the thermometer is frequently below freezing-point.

In shape Milan is a fairly regular polygon, and its focus is the splendid Piazza del Duomo, from which a number of broad modern streets radiate in all directions. These streets are connected by an inner circle of boulevards, constructed just outside the canal, which marks the site of the town moat. The