Vega, Lope De

Outstanding dramatist of the Spanish Golden Age, author of as many as 1,800 plays and several hundred shorter dramatic pieces, of which 431 plays and 50 shorter pieces are extant.

Nagercoil

City, southernmost Tamil Nadu state, southern India. Nagercoil lies west of the Aramboli Gap in the Western Ghats. It controls the major routes between Madras and Trivandrum and is a commercial centre for a rich agricultural area. Its name, meaning “snake temple,” indicates the early significance of the town's Saiva temple. Although historically a part of the Hindu kingdom

Ostariophysan, Feeding habits

The remarkable diversity of feeding habits among ostariophysians is associated with a fantastic variety of adaptations in mouth shapes and tooth types (especially in the suborder Characoidei) probably unsurpassed by any other group. At one extreme are certain cyprinids (e.g., Notropis atherinoides) with highly developed gill rakers that strain phytoplankton

Wildland Fire

Fire danger in a wildland setting varies with weather conditions: drought, heat, and wind participate in drying out the timber or other fuel, making it easier to ignite. Once a fire is burning, drought, heat, and wind all increase its intensity. Topography also affects wildland fire, which spreads

China, Japan and Ryukyu

Three years after the Meiji Restoration of 1868—which inaugurated a period of modernization and political change in Japan—a commercial treaty was signed between China and Japan, and it was ratified in 1873. Understandably it was reciprocal, because both signatories had a similar unequal status vis-à-vis the Western nations. The establishment of the new Sino-Japanese relations