PIX, the name of a little chest in which the consecrated host is kept in the Roman Catholic Church.  See PYX.

PIXIES, Devonshire Robin Goodfellows, said to be the spirits of infants who died unbaptized.

PIZARRO, FRANCISCO, the conqueror of Peru, born at Truxillo, in Spain, the son of a soldier of distinction; received no education, but was of an adventurous spirit, and entered the army; embarked with other adventurers to America, and having distinguished himself in Panama, set out by way of the Pacific on a voyage of discovery along with another soldier named Almagra; landed on the island of Gallo, on the coast of Peru, and afterwards returned with his companion to Spain for authority to conquer the country; when in 1529 he obtained the royal sanction he set sail from Spain with three ships in 1531, and on his arrival at Peru found a civil war raging between the two sons of the emperor, who had just died; Pizarro saw his opportunity; approached Atahualpa, the victorious one, now become the reigning Inca, with overtures of peace, was admitted into the interior of the country; invited him to a banquet, had him imprisoned, and commenced a wholesale butchery of his subjects, upon which he forced Atahualpa to disclose his treasures, and then put him perfidiously to death; his power, by virtue of the mere terror he inspired, was now established, and he might have continued to maintain it, but a contest having arisen between him and his old comrade Almagro, whom after defeating he put to death, the sons and friends of the latter rose against him, seized him in his palace at Lima, and took away his life (1476-1541).

PLAGUE, THE, is a very malignant kind of highly contagious fever, marked by swellings of the lymphatic glands.  From the development of purple patches due to subcutaneous haemorrhages the European epidemic of 1348-50 was called the Black Death.  A quarter of the European population perished on that occasion.  Other visitations devastated London in 1665, Northern Europe 1707-14, Marseilles and Provence 1720-22, and South-East Russia 1878-79.  The home of the Plague was formerly Lower Egypt, Turkey, and the shores of the Levant.  From these it has been absent since 1844.  Its home since then has been in India, where it has assumed epidemic form 1836-38 and 1896-99.

PLAIN, THE, the name given to the Girondists or Moderate party in the French National Convention, in contrast with THE MOUNTAIN (q. v.) or JACOBIN PARTY.

PLANCHE, JAMES ROBINSON, antiquary and dramatist, born in London, of French descent; author of a number of burlesques; an authority on heraldry and costumes; he produced over 200 pieces for the stage, and held office in the Heralds’ Court (1796-1880).

PLANETOIDS, the name given to a number of very small planets revolving between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, originally called Asteroids, all of recent discovery, and the list, amounting to some 400, as yet made of them understood to be incomplete.  They are very difficult of discovery, many of them from the smallness of their size and their erratic movements.