Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/479

M A N M A N 455 and 86" 12 W. long. Steamboat communication with Old Leon was opened in 1881, and a railway (32 miles) is in course of construction to Granada. It was mainly owing to the rivalry between Leon and Granada that Managua was chosen as the seat of the national assembly, and apart from the administrative buildings there is little of interest in the place. The population is about 12,000. MANAKIN, from the Dutch word Manneken, applied to certain small birds, a name apparently introduced into English by Edwards (Nat. Hist. Birds, i. p. 21) in or about 1743, since which time it has been accepted generally, and is now used for those which form the Family Pipridx of modern ornithologists. The Manakins are peculiar to the Neotropical Region, and are said to have many of the habits of the Titmouse Family (Paridee), living, says Swainson, in deep forests, associating in small bands, and keeping continually in motion, but feeding almost wholly on the large soft berries of the different kinds of Melastoma. However, as with most other South American Passerine birds, little is really known of their mode of life ; and it is certain that the Pipridse have no close affinity with the Paridse, 1 but belong to the other great division of the Order Passeres, to which Garrod assigned the name Mesomyodi, and in that division, according to the same authority, constitute, with the Gotingidee, 2 the group Heteromeri (Proc. Zool. Society, 1S76, p. 518). The Manakins are nearly all birds of gay appearance, generally exhibiting rich tints of blue, crimson, scarlet, orange, or yellow in combination with chestnut, deep black, black and white, or olive green ; and among their most obvious characteristics are their short bill and feeble feet, of which the outer toe is united to the middle toe for a good part of its length. The tail, in most species very short, has in others the middle feathers much elongated, and in one the outer rectrices are attenuated and produced into threads. They have been divided by various authors into upwards of twenty so-called genera ; but Messrs Sclater and Salvin (N omenclator, pp. 53-55) recognize only fifteen, though admitting sixty species, of which fifteen belong to the genus Pipra as now restricted, the P. leucocilla of Linnasus being its type. This species has a wide distribution from the isthmus of Panama to Guiana and the valley of the Amazon ; but it is one of the most plainly coloured of the Family, being black with a white head. The genus Machseropterus, consisting of four species, is very remark able for the extraordinary form of some of the secondary wing-feathers in the males, in which the shaft is thickened and the webs changed in shape, as described and illustrated by Mr Sclater (Proc. Zool. Society, 1860, p. 90 ; His, 1862, p. 175 3 ) in the case of the beautiful M. deliri-osus, and it has been observed that the wing-bones of these birds are also much thickened, no doubt in correlation with this abnormal structure. A like deviation from the ordinary character is found in the allied genus Manacus or Chiromachxris, comprehending six species, and that gentle man believes it enables them to make the singular noise for which they have long been noted (see BIRDS, vol. iii. p. 770), described by Mr Salvin (Ibis, 1860, p. 37) in the case of one of them, M. candeei, as beginning " with a sharp note not unlike the crack of a whip," which is " followed by a rattling sound not unlike the call of a landrail " ; and it is a similar habit that has obtained for another species, M. edwardsi, the name in Cayenne, accord- 1 Though Edwards called the species he figured (ut supra) a Titmouse, he properly remarked that there was no genus of European birds to which he could liken it. 2 Excluding, however, the genus Rupicola the beautiful orange- coloured birds well known as the "Cocks of the Bock" which has usually been placed among the Cotingidse. 3 The figures are repeated by Mr Darwin (Descent of Man, &c., ii. p. 66). ing to Buffon (Hist. Nat. Oiseattx, iv. p. 413), of Casse- noisette. This view is supported by Mr Layard, who, writing of the last species, says (Ibis, 1873, p. 384) " They make a curious rattling noise (I suspect, by some movement of the oddly shaped wing-feathers), which con stantly betrays their presence in the forests," while of the congeneric M. gutturosus, Mr J. F. Hamilton remarks (Ibis, 1871, p. 305) "The first intimation given of the presence of one of these birds is a sharp whirring sound very like that of a child s small wooden rattle, followed by two or three sharp snaps." The same observer adds (loc. cit.) of a member of the kindred genus Chiroxiphia, contain ing five species, that C. caudata is known to the Brazilians as the Fandango-bird from its "habit of performing a dance." They say that "one perches upon a branch and the others arrange themselves in a circle round it, dancing up and down on their perches to the music sung []] by the centre one." Exception must be taken to this story so far as regards the mode in which the "music" is pro duced, for these birds have no true song-muscles; but the effect is doubtless as described by Mr Hamilton s informant. (A, N.) MANANTADI, or MANANTODDY, a town in Malabar district, Madras, the trading centre of the Wainad coffee district (11 48 N. lat., 76 2 55" E. long.). The popula tion in 1871, including numerous European coffee planters, with their families, in the neighbourhood, was 10,959. Besides several Government offices, it contains a good club. Early in the century it was a military outpost, and in 1802 the garrison was massacred by the Kotiote rebels. MANASSEH. The tribe of JOSEPH (q.v.), the northern and stronger half of the "sons of Rachel," was divided into two branches, so considerable as themselves to bear the name of tribes, which referred their origin to Manasseh and Ephraim, the two sons of Joseph by his Egyptian wife Asenath. Of the two Manasseh was held to be the elder, but the patriarchal story relates how Jacob predicted the superiority of the younger branch (Gen. xlviii.), which in fact played far the greater part in history, occupying in the early days of the settlement in Canaan the part of the central mountain land (Mount Ephraim) where the head quarters of armed Israel and the sanctuary of the ark stood (at Shiloh), and in later times holding the kingship, and greatly excelling Manasseh in numerical strength (Deut. xxxiii. 17). During the conquest, perhaps, the separation of the two branches of Joseph was not so well marked as it afterwards became, for the ancient narrative of Josh. xvii. 14 sy. represents the whole house of Joseph as acting together, establishing itself in the uncleared forests of the central mountains till it had strength to contend with the iron chariots of the Cauaanites about Bethshean, and in the cities of the rich plain of Jezreel. These cities probably were not all subdued till the days of David or Solomon (Jud. i. 27 ; 1 Sam. xxxi. 10; 1 Kings ix. 15); they ulti mately fell to Manasseh, which held the northern part of the hill country of Joseph, overlooking the plain, and finally encroached on lands once reckoned to the less warlike tribes of Asher and Issachar (Josh. xvii. 11). But the line of division between Ephraim and Manasseh was not always the same, and in the time of Gideon, the great hero of Manasseh, and the man under whom the seniority of the tribe had a real meaning, Shechem itself was a Manassite dependency (Jud. viii. 31, ix. ; comp. Num. xxvi. 31 ; Josh. xvii. 2). Besides their western settlements in the fertile glades of northern Samaria, running out into the great plain, the Manassites had broad territories east of the Jordan in the pasture land of Bashan and Gilead, mainly occupied by a clan named Machir, and reckoned as the first-born of Manasseh. On the probability that these

territories were colonies from the west see vol. xiii. p. 401.