diplomatic correspondence (1st ed. Paris, 1624, fol. ; best by A. de la Houssaye, Paris, 1697, 2 vols. 4to, with notes; reprinted, with more notes, Amst. 1707, 1714, 1732, 5 vols. 12mo). This work was translated into Italian by Jerome Canini (Venice, 1729, 4to). He is also considered the author of the Lettres published un- der the name of cardinal Joyeuse, and of a remarka- ble Memoir on the League, written in Italian in 1590, and published in the Vie du Cardinal D'Ossat, Anon. (by Madam d'Arconville). See Gallia Christiana, vol. xi, xiv ; Frizon, Gallia pinpvrata ; Albj', Hist, des Car- din, illustres; Moreri, Diet, hist.; France pontijicale; Niceron, Mhnoires, xxxiv, 31-40; Jervis, Hist, of the Church of France, i, 224 sq. — Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Gene- rale, xxxviii, 909. (J. N. P.)
OsseniaiLS, a name sometimes given to the follow- ers of Elxai, in the 1st century, who taught that faith may and ought to be dissembled. — Buck, Theol. Diet. s. V. ; Farrar, Fccles. Diet. s. v.
Ossifrage occurs in the A. V. at Lev. xi, 13; Deut. xiv, 12 (where it is classed among unclean birds), as the rendering of the C^Q {pe'res; Se])t. ypv\p,Yulg. gi-i/ps'), which is supposed to be derived from the root paras', C^S, to breah, from the power of its beak to crush the bones of its victims. Hence the Latin compoimd ossi- frage, or bone-hreaher, is simply a translation of the He- brew name. There has been much difference of opinion as to the bird intended by this term, but it is evidently a large bird of the eagle kind, and is verj' possibly called in these passages by a general name, bestowed indefi- nitel}'^ by the Jews, with no accurate discrimination of species. The Targum of Onkelos, and the Sept. and Vulg., understand the "vulture," and many modem versions concur in this reading. Others think the word denotes the black eagle, and some the falcon. It is perhaps the great sea-eagle, which, as it differs in its colors during the several stages of its growth, has ob- tained three distinct systematic names : Falco ossifra- gus, Faleo albicilla, Falco albicandus. When it has at- tained its fifth year, it puts on its last suit, which is a dusky brown, intermixed with gray, with a white taU. It is about the size of the golden eagle, and inhabits the cliffs along the sea-shore. It is found in the northern parts of Europe and in Asia. But most prefer to iden- tify the Hebrew bird in question with the species com- monly known as the Vulture of the Alps, which was the ossifrage of the Romans. It was called by the Hellenic
L;:mmergc}ei oi \uUuie of the Alps {Gvpaitus Barbatus).
OSSILAGO
472
OSTERWALD
nations phene (^//j'j;), and is known as the Liimmer- geyer in Switzerland. This is the largest flying bird of the Old World, and inhabits the highest ranges of mountains in Europe, Western Asia, and Africa. Not only does he push kids and lambs, and even men, off the rocks, but he takes the bones of animals that other birds of prey have denuded of the flesh high up into the air, and lets them fall upon a stone in order to crack them and render them more digestible even for his enormous powers of deglutition. (See Mr. Simp- son's very interesting account of the Liimmergeyer in Ibis, ii, 282.) The Ldmmertjeyer, or bearded vulture, as it is sometimes called, is one of the largest of the birds of prey. It is not uncommon in the East; and Mr. Tristram several times observetl this bird "saihng over the high mountain-passes west of the Jordan" (^Nut. Hist, of the Bible, p. 171). The species in Europe is little if at all inferior in size to the Condor of South America, measuring from the point of the bill to the end of the tail four feet two or three inches, and some- times ten feet in the expanse of wing; the head and neck are not,like those of vultures, naked, but covered with whitish narrow feathers; and there is a beard of bristly hair under the lower mandible; the rest of the plumage is nearly black and brown, with some ^vhitish streaks on the shoulders, and an abundance of pale rust color on the back of the neck, the thighs, vent, and legs ; the toes are short and bluish, and the claws strong. In the young the head and neck are black, and the species or variety of Abyssinia appears to be rusty and yellow- ish on the neck and stomach. It is the griffon of Cu- vier, Gypaetos barbatus of nomenclators, and ypi'i// of the Sept. The Arabs, according to Bruce, use the names Abu-Diicli'n and Nisser-Werk, which is a proof that they consider it a kind of eagle, and perhaps con- found this species with the great sea-eagle, which has likewise a few bristles under the throat; and commen- tators who have often represented Peres to be the black vulture, or a great vulture, were only viewing the Gy- paetos as forming one of the order Accipitres, according to the Linnffian arrangement, where Vultur barbatus (Syst. Nat.) is the last of that genus, although in the thirteenth edition (by Gmelin) we find the name changed to Falco barbatus, and located immediately before F. albicilla, or the sea-eagle, showing that until a still more accurate classification placed the species in a sep- arate genus, ornithologists had no determined idea of the true place it should occupy, and consequently by what generical appellation it was to be distinguished.