SERGY NIKOLAEVICH

GLINKA (1774-1847)  , Russian author, the elder brother of Fedor N . Glinka, was born at Smolensk in 1774 . In 1796 he entered the Russian army, but after three years' service retired with the rank of major . He afterwards employed himself in the education of youth and in literary pursuits, first in the Ukraine, and subsequently at Moscow, where he died in 1847 . His poems are spirited and patriotic; he wrote also several dramatic pieces,; and translated Young's Night Thoughts . Among his numerous prose works the most important from an historical point of view are: Russkoe Chtenie (Russian Reading : Historical Memorials of Russia in the 28th and zgth Centuries) (2 vols., 1845) ; Istoriya Rossii, &c . (History of Russia for the use of Youth) (to vols., 1817-1819, 2nd ed . 1822, 3rd ed . 1824); Istoriya Armyan, &c . (History of the Migration of the Armenians of Azerbijan from Turkey to Russia) (1831); and his contributions to the Russky Vyestnik (Russian Messenger), a monthly periodical, edited by him from 1808 to 1820 . GLOBE-FISH, or SEA-HEDGEHOG, the names by which some sea-fishes are known, which have the remarkable faculty of inflating their stomachs with air . They belong to the families Diodontidae and Tetrodontidae .

Their jaws resemble the

sharp beak of a parrot, the bones and teeth being coalesced into one mass with a sharp edge . In the Diodonts there is no mesial division of the jaws, whilst in the Tetrodonts such a division exists, so that they appear to have two teeth above and two below . By means of these jaws they are able to break off branches of corals, and to masticate other hard substances on which they feed . Usually they are of a short, thick, cylindrical shape, with powerful fins (fig . O., Their body is covered with thick skin, without scales, but provided with variously formed spines, the size and extent of which vary in the different species . When they inflate their capacious stomachs with air, they assume a globular. form, and the spines protrude, forming a more or less formidable defensive armour (fig . 2) . A fish thus blown out deleterious qualities to other fish . They are most numerous between the tropics and in the seas contiguous to them, but a few species live in large rivers, as, for instance, the Tetrodon fahaka, a fish well known to all travellers on the Nile . Nearly too different species are known .