BIR, or Birejik (the former being its Arabic and the latter its Turkish name), a town of Asiatic Turkey, in the pashalik of Rakka, built on the side of a chalky range of hills that skirts the left bank of the Euphrates, about 90 miles N.E. of Aleppo, in long. 38° 6' E., and lat. 36° 48' N. It consists of about 2000 houses, surrounded by a dilapidated wall and protected by the citadel of Kalai-Beda, which, with its earthquake-shattered interior, occupies a precipitous eminence cut off from the town. Bir is situated on the main route from Aleppo to Orfa, Diarbekr, and the Persian frontier, and had formerly a considerable trade with Baghdad by means of the river. It is now a post and telegraph station. A ferry seems to have crossed the river at this spot from time immemorial, Abraham himself having made use of it, according to tradition, on his passage from Haran to Canaan. The town is identified with the ancient Birtha or Britha, where the emperor Julian rested on his march to Maogamalcha, and found quarters for his army in one extensive palace. In the English Euphrates expedition Bir was frequently visited, Fort William, one of the principal places of rendezvous, being about 2 miles further down on the other side of the river. (See view in Chesney’s Narrative of Euphrates Expedition, 1868.)

BIRCH(Betula), a genus of arboraceous plants constituting the principal portion of the natural order Betulaceoe. The various species of birch are mostly trees of medium size, but several of them are merely shrubs. They are as a rule of a very hardy character, thriving best in northern latitudes,—the trees having round, slender branches, and serrate deciduous leaves, with barren and fertile catkins on the same tree and winged seeds. The bark in most of the trees occurs in fine soft membranous layers, the outer cuticle of which peels off in thin white papery sheets. The common birch (Â alba) grows throughout the greater part of Europe, and also in Asia Minor, Siberia, and North America, reaching in the north to the extreme limits of forest vegetation, and stretching southward on the European continent as a forest tree to 45 3 N. lat., beyond which birches occur only in special situations or as isolated trees. It is one of the most wide-spread and generally useful of forest trees of Russia, occurring in that empire in vast forests, in many instances alone, and in other cases mingled with pines, poplars, and other forest trees. The wood is highly valued by carriage-builders, upholsterers, and turners, on account of its toughness and tenacity, and in Russia it is prized as firewood and a source of charcoal. A very extensive domestic industry in Russia consists in the manufacture of wooden spoons, which are made to the extent of 30,000,000 annually, mostly of birch. Its pliant and flexible branches are made into brooms; and in ancient Rome the fasces of the lictors, with which they cleared the way for the magistrates, were made up of birch rods. A similar use of birch rods has continued among pedagogues to times so recent that the birch is yet, literally or metaphorically, ...

BIRD, William, an English composer, and one of the best organists of his time, was born about 1540, and died at London, 4th July 1623. He was appointed organist of Lincoln cathedral in 1563; and in 1575 he and his master Tallis were gentlemen of the chapel royal, and organists to Queen Elizabeth. Bird was the earliest English composer of madrigals, and some of his numerous sacred compositions are still much esteemed. Most of them were published during his lifetime under a patent from Queen Elizabeth, which secured to him and Tallis the sole right to print and sell music. Between 1575 and 1611 there were issued under this patent eight different collections of his works, with such titles as Cantiones Sacroe ; Gradualia; Psalmes, Songs, and Sonets, <fcc. The vocal canon Non nobis Domine, generally attributed to him, is well known, and often sung. He also wrote a number of pieces for Queen Elizabeth’s Virginal Book, and other similar collections. In his compositions there is a freedom and elegance rarely found in the music of his period. A full account of Bird’s life by E. F. Rimbault is prefixed to one of his Masses, published by the Musical Antiquarian Society.

צפור, a common name for all birds, but is sometimes used for the sparrow in particular. Birds are distinguished by the Jewish legislator into clean and unclean. Such as fed upon grain and seeds were allowed for food, and such as devoured flesh and carrion were prohibited. Moses, to inspire the Israelites with sentiments of tenderness toward the brute creation, commands them, if they find a bird’s nest, not to take the dam with the young, but to suffer the old one to fly away, and to take the young only, Deut. xxii, 6. This is one of those merciful constitutions in the law of Moses which respect the animal creation, and tended to humanize the heart of that people, to excite in them a sense of the divine providence extending itself to all creatures, and to teach them to exercise their dominion over them with gentleness. Beside, the young never knew the sweets of liberty; the dam did: they might be taken and used for any lawful purpose; but the dam must not be brought into a state of captivity. The poet Phocylides has a maxim, in his admonitory poem, very similar to that in the sacred texts:-- Μηδέ τις ὄρνιθας καλιῆς ἅμα ϖάντας ἑλέσθω, Μητερα δ’ ἐκπρολίπης, ἵν’ ἔχῃς ϖάλι τῆσδε νεοττούς. Nor from a nest take all the birds away, The mother spare, she’ll breed a future day. It appears that the ancients hunted birds. Baruch, iii, 17, speaking of the kings of Babylon, says, “They had their pastime with the fowls of the air;” and Daniel, iii, 38, tells Nebuchadnezzar that God had made the fowls of the air subject to him. Birds were offered in sacrifice on many occasions. In the sacrifices for sin, he who had not a lamb, or a kid, “might offer two turtles, or two young pigeons; ...