LA'RI (Neo-Lat. nom. pl., from Lat. larus, Gk. Xápos, gull). A suborder of birds, including gulls, terns, skuas, and skimmers (qq.v.), characterized by their long, pointed wings, nostrils open but not tubular, hind toe small and free, or rarely wanting. The bill is very variable, but never has lamellæ. The feet are fully webbed, and provided with compressed curved claws. The plumage is soft, dense, and simply colored; bright colors are rare, except on the bill and feet, and the sexes are alike in color. The nest is ordinarily on the ground, and the eggs are about three, white with heavy blotches. They are chiefly marine birds, but are also found about large bodies of fresh water. More than 125 species are known, residing in all parts of the world.

A

LAR'IGOT (OF. l'arigot, the flageolet). stop of the organ, which is usually termed the 'nineteenth.' It is tuned an octave above the twelfth stop, or two octaves and a fifth above the diapasons. It has a single rank of metal pipes, and is found in some organs as one of the ranks of the mixture stops. Its tone is exceedingly shrill.

LARIO, läʼrê-ô, LAKE (Lago di Lario). other name for Lake Como (q.v.), Italy.

An

LAR'IOSAURUS (Neo-Lat., from Lat. Larius, ancient name of the Lago di Como + Gk. σaupos, sauros, lizard). A small extinct reptile, three feet long, of the order Sauropterygia, found fossil in the Triassic shales of Northern Italy. It is related to the Plesiosaurs. See PLESIOSAURUS: REPTILE.

LARIS'SA. The capital of the nomarchy or province of the same name in Thessaly, Greece Map: Greece, D 2). It is situated on the Salamvria (ancient Peneus), 33 miles northwest of the port of Volo, with which it is connected by rail. It carries on an important transit trade, has manufactures of silk and cotton goods, and is a military headquarters, as well as the seat of a Greek metropolitan. Population, in 1889, 13,610; in 1896, 15,517, of whom 5000 were Turks. In ancient times Larissa (Larisa) was regarded as the capital of Thessaly and was the residence of the reigning family of the Aleuadæ. It was a large and wealthy city far into the Middle Ages. It was the headquarters of the Greek Army in the war against Turkey in the spring of 1897.

LA RIVE, là rêv, AUGUSTe de. See DE LA RIVE.

LA RIVE, CHARLES GASPARD DE (1770-1834). A Swiss chemist, born in Geneva. He studied medicine and the natural sciences in Edinburgh; became associate in the Academy of Geneva in 1802, and distinguished himself by researches in chemistry and natural history. Among his works may be noted: Observations (upon the conversion of starch into sugar); and an Essai sur la théorie des proportions chimiques et sur l'influence chimique de l'électricité. La Rive took an active part in the political life of Switzerland; was a member of the provisional council in 1813, and in 1817 became president of both councils of the Republic. The museum of natural history and the botanic garden at Geneva were founded by him.

LARIVEY, lå'rê'va', PIERRE DE (c.1550c.1612). A French dramatist, born at Troyes. His family was Italian, and he was a canon of

the Church of Saint Etienne at Troyes, but aside from these facts little is known of his life. In 1577 he began to write a series of prose comedies adapted from the Italian. Their fresh, natural dialogue and lively scenes make them the most important contribution to this kind of literature produced in the latter part of the sixteenth century. They were borrowed from by Molière. Six of them appeared in 1579, and three in 1611. They have been reprinted in Viollet-le-Duc and Jannet's L'ancien théâtre français, vols. v. to vii. (1879).

LA RIVIÈRE, lå'rê'vyâr', ALPHONSE ALFRED CLÉMENT (1842-). A Canadian journalist and statesman. He was born in Montreal and was educated at Saint Mary's College, Montreal. His journalistic experience was gained as special correspondent of La Minerve of Montreal, and as editor of Le Manitoba and of Le Canada of Ottawa. In 1871 he was appointed to a position in the Dominion Lands Office, Winnipeg, and afterwards became prominent in the affairs of Manitoba, as member of the Provincial Assembly, Provincial Secretary, Minister of Agriculture, and Treasurer. He served as director of the Commercial Bank of Manitoba, and as president

of the Board of Arts and Manufactures of the Province of Quebec, also as superintendent of Roman Catholic schools of Manitoba, and as member of the council of the University of Manitoba. In 1889 he was elected to the Dominion Parliament.

LAʼRIX. The name of a genus of coniferous trees. See LARCH.

LARK (AS. läferce, lauerce, OHG. lērahhā, lerehhā, lērihhā, Ger. Lerche). Several different birds are called 'larks,' but properly only those of the family Alaudidæ, of which skylarks and shore-larks are good examples. The Alaudida are a small family of scarcely more than 100 species, very well characterized by the structure of the feet, in which the hind claw is very long and straight, and the tarsi are scutellate behind as well as in front, and the two series of plates meet along a vertical groove on the inner side of the tarsus. By many this is regarded as a very generalized character, and the group is accordingly assigned to one of the lowest positions in the order Passeres. Larks are small, and mostly brownish birds, more or less streaked, but the shore-larks show more or less yellow, white, black, rufous, and pinkish. They are most abundant in Africa, but are common in Europe and parts of Asia, while uncommon in Australia and America. Only a single genus occurs in the New World, that of the shore-larks (Otocoris). All of the larks are terrestrial birds, which nest and feed on the ground, and the food consists of seeds, worms, and insects. They are generally migratory, and some of them are great wanderers. Except during the breeding season they are very gregarious, and are often seen in enormous numbers. The nests are generally made in open fields and the eggs, four or five in number, are dull and more or less speckled and blotched. The titlarks and meadow-larks of America are not true larks, but belong to totally distinct families. See SHORE-LARK; SKYLARK; and Plate of LARKS AND STARLINGS.

LARK-BUNTING. An American fringilline bird (Calamospiza melanocorys) which inhabits the plains and mountain valleys of the West

from Kansas to Utah. It curiously combines the features of a grosbeak with the habits of a lark, being eminently a terrestrial bird in all its relations. It has a remarkably varied and brilliant song, which it often utters while soaring, much after the manner of the skylark. The plumage of the male, in the height of the breeding season, is uniform black, with a large conspicuous white patch on the upper part of the wing; the female is a streaked brownish gray, with a smaller wingpatch. At the close of the breeding season the males lose their black color and assume the colors of the females and young, very much as does the bobolink. Excellent accounts of the habits and singing of this bird may be found in Coues, Birds of the Northwest (Washington, 1874), and Keyser, Birds of the Rockies (Chicago, 1902).

LARK-FINCH, or LARK-SPARROW. A small, pale-colored sparrow (Chondestes grammacus), very numerous on the prairies and plains of the Western United States. Its song is animated and lark-like, and is very pleasing. It is not wholly terrestrial, and is found in wooded and hilly places as well as on open lands.

LARKSPUR (so called from the spur-like formation of the calyx and petals), Delphinium. A genus of plants of the natural order Ranunculaceæ, annual and perennial herbaceous plants, natives of the temperate and cold regions of the

LARKSPUR.

Northern Hemisphere. The species, of which about 100 have been described, have five sepals, the upper spurred; four petals, distinct or united into one, the two upper having spurs inserted into the sepaline spur; and one to five manyseeded follicles. Many species are cultivated as ornamentals, among which the annuals Delphinium ajacis and Delphinium Consolida, natives of Europe, and the perennials Delphinium grandiflorum, Delphinium hybridum, and Delphinium formosum, all natives of Asia, and their many varieties are the most popular. Among the more

common American species are Delphinium tricorne and Delphinium exaltatum, found from Pennsylvania to Minnesota, and southward; and Delphinium Menziesii, Delphinium nudicaule, and Delphinium scopulorum of the Western States and Pacific Coast. Delphinium Staphisagria, called stavesacre, cultivated in Europe, is used in medicine. It contains a number of alkaloids, having in general the same action as aconite. Numerous cases of stock-poisoning due to eating larkspur are reported from the Western ranges.

LARMES, lärm (Fr., tears). A charge in heraldry (q.v.). When the field is bestrewed with an indefinite number of drops of a blue color, it is said to be gutté de larmes, a nomenclature peculiar to British heraldy.

LAR'NACA, or LARNAKA (Lat. Citium, Gk. Kirov, Kition). A town of Cyprus, in latitude 34° 55′ N., and longitude 33° 38' E., 4 miles from the south coast of the island. It has a good roadstead, but the town is not attractive, though it has improved since the English occupation. The chief public buildings in Larnaca are the Greek Church of Saint Lazarus, a Roman Catholic church, and a Franciscan monastery. Larnaca is the chief seat of the commerce of the island, and the residence of European merchants and consuls, whose homes are for the most part in the Marina, or part of the city situated on the shore and a short distance from Larnaca proper. At the Marina are also the public offices. The facilities for landing have been improved by the erection of two iron piers, though large vessels are still obliged to anchor in the roadstead. Population, in 1901, 6686. The ancient Citium was probably a Phoenician settlement, and many scholars hold that it gave its name to the island, which is identified with the land of Kittim mentioned in the Bible. The city seems to have long kept its Phoenician character, as a number of inscriptions in that language have been found on the site, though later the population was largely Greek. It was the native place of Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school of philosophy.

LARNAU’DIAN EPOCH. The name applied to an epoch in European, prehistoric archæology at the close of the Bronze Age, and so called from the station of Larnaud, in the Jura Mountains.

LARNE, lärn. A seaport town and summer resort of Ireland, in County Antrim, on Lough Larne (Map: Ireland, F 2). A mail-steamer sails daily between Larne and Stranraer in Scotland, 391⁄2 miles distant, the shortest sea passage between Great Britain and Ireland. The project of a tunnel to Portpatrick, Scotland, has long been mooted. Population, 4500.

LAR'NED. A city and the county-seat of Pawnee County, Kan., 240 miles by rail west by south of Topeka; at the confluence of the Arkansas and Pawnee rivers, and on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe and the Missouri Pacific railroads (Map: Kansas, C 3). It is the shipping centre of the adjacent farming and stock-raising country, and has some manufactures, principally flour. Population, 1900, 1583; 1905, 1998.

LAR'NICA. A town in Cyprus. See LAR

his first appearance in Dresden at seventeen, and playing in Danzig, Lemberg, Berlin, Königsberg, and, in 1823, Weimar, where he met Goethe. In 1883, after several tours, he was engaged for life in the Vienna Burgtheater. He received the order of the Iron Crown, with the title of chevalier, in 1873. His rôles were many and varied, and were famed for their verisimilitude and the conscientious study of the author, which they evidenced. Chief among them were Mephistopheles (a part La Roche learned under Goethe's supervision), Lear, Shylock, Cromwell, and Malvolio. Consult Mautner, Karl La Roche (Vienna, 1873).

LA ROCHE, SOPHIE (1731-1807). A German novelist, born at Kaufbeuren. After her father's second marriage, Sophie was sent to Biberach to live in the family of Wieland, the poet's father (1750); and four years later, after a long platonic friendship with the young poet, who wrote of her under the names Doris, Serena, and Sylvia, she married Georg Michael Frank von La Roche (or Lichtenfels). Their home near Coblenz became a meeting-place for the literary men of the day. Goethe celebrates it in the thirteenth book of his Dichtung und Wahrheit. Her romances are written in the epistolic manner of Richardson, and the characters of her best-known novel, Geschichte des Fräulein von Sternheim (1771), bear a close resemblance to those in Clarissa Harlowe. Her other books are: Moralische Erzählungen (1782); Geschichte von Miss Long (1789); Schönes Bild der Resignation (1795); and Melusinens Sommerabende (1806). Consult Ridderhoff, Sophie La Roche, die Schülerin Richardsons und Rousseaus (Einbeck, 1895).

LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, lå rosh'foo'ko', FRANÇOIS (1613-80), sixth Duke of, Prince of Marcillac. A French epigrammatic moralist, born in Paris, December 15, 1613. He is a type of the cynical satirist of human nature. Of ancient and powerful family, he had little scholastic education, but was an apt pupil in the school of public life. He joined the army at sixteen, being already nominally married to Andrée de Vi. vonne, of whom little is known. He served in the army for some years bravely but without distinction, became attached to Madame de Chevreuse, and through her to Queen Anne, and engaged in intrigues against Richelieu and in the plots of the Fronde. His Apologie du prince de Marcillac appeared in 1649. His father died in 1650. He was shot in the head at the battle of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, 1652; spent some years in country retirement, returned to Court shortly before Mazarin's death, became a leading light of the literary salon of Madame de Sablé, was vexed and imperiled by the publication of alleged Mémoires in 1662, and in 1665 published anonymously his famous Maximes, under the title Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales. From this year till his death (March 17, 1680) he was a close friend of Madame de La Fayette (q.v.), and lived in dignity and honor, troubled only by the gout, of which he died. His Mémoires, first published in an approximately genuine form in 1817, are among the best of a time peculiarly rich in this form of writing; his Lettres, first published in 1818, are of great historic and social interest; his Maximes, passing through five editions in his lifetime, and increased by 50 in an edition of 1693, are astonish

ingly acute analyses of motive. They combine to a degree never surpassed clearness, point, pregnancy, and brevity. The social philosophy that they enforce is that of self-interest, "in which all virtues are lost like rivers in the sea;" but it is an inference, 'not a doctrine. There are some 700 of these maxims, often of but two or three lines, never of more than twenty, and all so expressed as to be an enduring artistic delight. La Rochefoucauld's Œuvres are admirably edited by Gilbert and Gourdault (3 vols., Paris, 186884). Editions of the Maximes are many. The finest is the Edition des bibliophiles (1870). Consult: Sainte-Beuve, Causeries, vol. ii. (Paris 1881); Levasseur, La Rochefoucauld (ib., 1862); Deschanel, Pascal, La Rochefoucauld, Bossuet (ib., 1885); Rahstede, Studien zu La Rochefoucauld (Brunswick, 1888); Bourdeau, La Rochefoucauld (Paris, 1895); Hémon, La Rochefoucauld (ib., 1896).

LA ROCHEFOUCAULD - LIANCOURT, lyäN'koor', FRANÇOIS ALEXANDRE FRÉDÉRIC, Duke of (1747-1827). An eminent French philanthropist. In the period preceding the outbreak of the French Revolution he devoted himself to the study and practice of benevolent works, founding on his estate near Clermont a model school for the education of the children of poor soldiers. He was a representative of the nobles of Clermont in the States-General, where he displayed remarkable activity in matters concerning the amelioration of the condition of the poor and the defective. After the dissolution of the National Assembly he was made lieutenantgeneral and placed in command of the department of Normandy. He fled from the Terror to England (1792), and visited North America (1795-97), a journey on which he published Voyage dans les Etats-Unis d'Amérique (8 vols., 1798). He wrote also Les prisons de Philadelphie (1796), in which he advocated radical penological reforms and the abolition of capital punishment. From 1799 La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt lived

quietly in Paris, occupied only with the exten

sion of vaccination and similar works of benevo

lence. Napoleon restored to him his ducal title in 1809. After the Restoration he was made a peer, but soon gave offense to the Court by opposing its unconstitutional policy. He founded the first savings bank in France.-His second son, ALEXANDRE, Count of La Rochefoucauld (1767-1841), served under Lafayette in the early years of the Revolution, but fled the country at the same time representative at the Saxon Court, at Vienna, and as his father. Under Napoleon he was diplomatic in Holland. After the fall of Napoleon III. he was a member repeatedly of the Chamber of Deputies and in 1833 was raised to the peerage.

LAROCHEJACQUELEIN, là rôshzhak lăn, DU VERGER DE. An ancient and noble family of Poitou in France, distinguished for its devotion to the cause of the Bourbons after 1789. HENRI DU VERGER, Count de Larochejacquelein (177294), was born at the Château of La Darbellière. near Châtillon, became an officer in the Guard of Louis XVI., and after the bloody event of August 10, 1792, left Paris and joined the Royalists in La Vendée. He fought in all the long series of battles at Aubiers, Beaupréaux, Thouars, Fontenay, Saumur, and Chatonay. After the decisive defeat at Cholet (October, 1793) he was made generalissimo of the Vendean forces, though only twentyone years of age. He led his men successfully