BANIM, JOHN, Irish author, a native of Kilkenny, novelist of Irish peasant life on its dark side, who, along with his brother Michael, wrote 24 vols. of Irish stories, &c.; his health giving way, he fell into poverty, but was rescued by a public subscription and a pension; Michael survived him 32 years (1798-1842).

BANKS, SIR JOSEPH, a zealous naturalist, particularly in botany; a collector, in lands far and wide, of specimens in natural history; left his collection and a valuable library and herbarium to the British Museum; president of the Royal Society for 41 years (1744-1820).

BANKS, THOMAS, an eminent English sculptor, born at Lambeth; first appreciated by the Empress Catharine; his finest works, “Psyche” and “Achilles Enraged,” now in the entrance-hall of Burlington House; he excelled in imaginative art (1735-1805).

BANNATYNE CLUB, a club founded by Sir Walter Scott to print rare works of Scottish interest, whether in history, poetry, or general literature, of which it printed 116, all deemed of value, a complete set having been sold for L235; dissolved in 1861.

BAN`NOCKBURN (2), a manufacturing village 3 m.  SE. of Stirling, the scene of the victory, on June 24, 1314, of Robert the Bruce over Edward II., which reasserted and secured Scottish independence; it manufactures carpets and tartans.

BAN`SHEE, among the Irish, and in some parts of the Highlands and Brittany, a fairy, believed to be attached to a family, who gave warnings by wailings of an approaching death in it, and kept guard over it.

BANTAM, a chief town in Java, abandoned as unhealthy by the Dutch; whence the Bantam fowl is thought to have come.

BANTING SYSTEM, a dietary for keeping down fat, recommended by a Mr. Banting, a London merchant, in a “Letter on Corpulence” in 1863; he recommended lean meat, and the avoidance of sugar and starchy foods.

BANTRY BAY, a deep inlet on the SW. coast of Ireland; a place of shelter for ships.

BANTU, the name of most of the races, with their languages, that occupy Africa from 6 deg.  N. lat. to 20 deg.  S.; are negroid rather than negro, being in several respects superior; the name, however, suggests rather a linguistic than an ethnological distinction, the language differing radically from all other known forms of speech—­the inflection, for one thing, chiefly initial, not final.

BANVILLE, THEODORE DE, a French poet, born at Moulins; well characterised as “Roi des Rimes,” for with him form was everything, and the matter comparatively insignificant, though, there are touches here and there of both fine feeling and sharp wit (1823-1891).

BANYAN, the Indian fig; a tree whose branches, bending to the ground, take root and form new stocks, till they cover a large area and become a forest.

BA`OBAB, a large African tropical tree, remarkable for the girth of its trunk, the thickness of its branches, and their expansion; its leaves and seeds are used in medicine.