Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/66

S S P the Transitional style ; but it is inferior in architectural interest to the Marienkirche, a fine Gothic structure of the 14th century. The town-house contains portraits of the plenipotentiaries engaged in concluding the peace of West phalia, the negotiations for which were partly carried on here. Among the other principal buildings are the episco pal residence, the law courts, the two gymnasia, the com mercial school, and various other educational and charitable institutions. The museum contains antiquities and objects of natural history. The lunatic asylum on the Gertruden- berg occupies the site of an ancient nunnery. Linen was formerly the staple product of Osnabriick, but no longer takes so prominent a position among its manufactures, which now include paper, dyes, chemicals, machinery, nails, pianos, tobacco, and cotton. There are also large iron and steel works and a rolling mill. A brisk trade is carried on in grain, drugs, linen, and "Westphalian hams, and import ant cattle and horse fairs are held here at regular inter vals. Osnabriick contains (1880) 32,812 inhabitants, one- third of whom are Roman Catholics. The patriotic writer and philanthropist Julius Moser (1720-94) was a native of Osnabriick, and has a statue in the cathedral square. Osnabriick is a place of very ancient origin, and in 888 received the right to establish a mint, an annual fair, and a custom-house. It was surrounded with walls towards the close of the llth century. The bishopric to which it gave name was founded by Charlemagne after the subjugation of the Saxon inhabitants of the district (c. 790), and embraced what was afterwards the south-west part of the kingdom of Hanover. The town maintained a very independent attitude towards its nominal rulers, the bishops, and joined the Hanseatic League. It reached the height of its prosperity in the 15th century, but the decay inaugurated by the dissensions of the Reformation was accelerated by the trials of the Thirty Years War. The peace of A f estphalia decreed that the bishopric of Westphalia should be held alternately by a Roman Catholic and a Protestant bishop, and this curious state of affairs lasted down to its seculariza tion in 1803. The last bishop was the late duke of York. Since 1859 Osnabriick has again been the seat of a Roman Catholic bishop, who, of course, has no territorial jurisdiction. The revived pro sperity of the town dates from the middle of last century. OSORIO., GEROHYMO (1506-1580), "the Cicero of Portugal," belonged to a noble family, and was born at Lisbon in 1506. After studying languages at Salamanca, philosophy at Paris, and theology at Bologna, he rose through successive ecclesiastical dignities to the bishopric of Sylves. He evaded the necessity of accompanying Dom Sebastian on his first African expedition (which he did all in his power to discourage) only by setting out for Rome, where he was well received by Gregory XIII. The disaster which overtook the Portuguese arms at Alcazarquivir in 1578 had a serious effect on Osorio s health and spirits ; he withdrew into solitude, and died at Tavira on August 20, 1580. His principal work, a history of the reign of King Emanuel I. (De rebus Emmanuelis Lusitaniee rcyis invictissimi virtute et auspicio domi forisque gestis libri XII., 1571), undertaken at the request of Cardinal Henry, entitles him to considerable literary lank, not only ay pure Latinity and artistic arrangement, but also by historical accuracy and insight, as well as by impartiality and elevation of tone. An English translation appeared in 1752; and versions in French, German, and Dutch also exist. Osorio s DC gloria libri V. (1552), and his double treatise De nobilitate civiliet de nobilitate Christiana (1542) have been often reprinted; of the former D Alembert is reported to have declared that it was really a production of Cicero s palmed off by the modern as his own. Osorio also publishc l De rcgis iiistitutione et discipllna libri VIII. (1574) and a large mass of theological matter, including commen taries on the Epistle to the Romans, the Gospel according to John, and some of the minor prophets. His Adnwnitio and Epistola to Queen Elizabeth of England are polemical treatises. The Opera Oinnia of Osorio were collected and published at Rome by his nephew in 1592 (4 vols. folio). OSPREY, or OSPRAY, a word said to be corrupted from " Ossifrage, " in Latin OsKifraga or bone-breaker. The Ossifraga of Pliny (//. N., x. 3) and some other classical writers seems, as already said, to have been the LAMMER- GEYER (vol. xiv. p. 244); but the name, not inapplicable in that case, has been transferred through a not uncommon but inexplicable confusion to another bird which is no breaker of bones, save incidentally those of the fishes it devours. 1 The Osprey is a rapacious bird, of middling size and of conspicuously-marked plumage, the white of its lower parts, and often of its head, contrasting sharply with the dark brown of the back and most of its upper parts when the bird is seen on the wing. It is the Falco haliaetus of Linnaeus, but unquestionably deserving generic separation was, in 1810, established by Savigny (Ois. de VEgypte, p. 35) as the type of a new genus which he was pleased to term Pandion a name since pretty generally accepted. It has commonly been kept in the Family Falconidx, but of late regarded as the representa tive of a separate Family, Pandionidoc, for which view not a little can be said. 2 Pandion differs from the Falconidse not only pterylologically, as long ago observed by Nitzsch, but also osteologically, as pointed out by M. Alphonse Milne-Edwards (Ois. Foss. France, ii. pp. 413, 419), and it is a curious fact that in some of the characters in which it differs structurally from the Falconidse, it agrees with certain of the Owls ; but the most important parts of its internal structure, as well as of its pterylosis, quite forbid a belief that there is any near alliance of the two groups. The Osprey is one of the most cosmopolitan Birds-of- Prey. From Alaska to Brazil, from Lapland to Natal, from Japan to Tasmania, and in some of the islands of the Pacific, it occurs as a winter-visitant or as a resident. The countries which it does not frequent would be more easily named than those in which it is found and among the former are Iceland and New Zealand. Though migratory in Europe at least, it is generally independent of climate. It breeds equally on the half-thawed shores of Hudson s Bay and on the cays of Honduras, in the dense forests of Finland and on the barren rocks of the Red Sea, in Kamchatka and in West Australia. Where, through abundance of food, it is numerous as in former days vas the case in the eastern part of the United States the nests of the Fish-Hawk (to use its American name) may be placed on trees to the number of three hundred close together. Where food is scarcer and the species accord ingly less plentiful, a single pair will occupy an isolated rock, and jealously expel all intruders of their kind, as happens in Scotland. 3 The lover of birds cannot see many more enjoyable spectacles than an Osprey engaged in fishing poising itself aloft, with upright body, and wings beating horizontally, ere it plunges like a plummet beneath the water, and immediately after reappears shaking a shower of drops from its plumage. The feat of carrying off an Osprey s eggs is often difficult, and attended with some risk, but has more than once tempted the most daring of birds nesters. Apart from the dangerous situa tion not unfrequently chosen by the birds for their eyry, a steep rock in a lonely lake, only to be reached after a 1 Another supposed old form of the name is " Orfraie "; but that is said by M. Holland (Faune popul. France, ii. p. 9, note), quoting M. Suchier (Zeitschr. Rum. Philol., i. p. 432), to arise from a mingling of two wholly different sources: (1) Oripelargvs, Qriperayus, Orjmu x, and (2) Ossifrac/a. " Orfraie " again is occasionally interchanged with Effraie (which, through such dialectical forms as Fresaie, Fressaia, is said to corne from the Latin pr/vsaya), the ordinary French name for the Barn-Owl, Aluco flammeus (see OWL, infra, p. 91) ; but the subject is too complex for any but an expert philologist to treat. According to Prof. Skeat s Dictionary (i. p. 408), "Asprey" is the oldest English form ; but " Osprey" dates from Cotgrave at least. 2 Mr Sharpe goes further, and makes a " Suborder " Pandiones ; but the characters on which he founds such an important division are obviously inadequate. The other genus associated with Pandion by him has been shown by Mr Gurney (Ibis, 1878, p. 455) to be nearly allied to the ordinary Sea-Eagles (Haliaetus), and therefore one of the true Falconidee. 3 Two good examples of the different localities chosen by this bird for its nest are illustrated in Oothcca Wollcyana, pis. B. & H.