ularly fond of fishing and yachting, and
his best stories are those which are laid amid the breezy mountains of
his native land, or upon the deck of a yacht at sea off its wild coast.
His descriptions of such scenery are simple and picturesque. He was a
word-painter rather than a student of human nature. His women are
stronger than his men, and among them are many wayward and lovable
creatures; but subtlety of intuition plays no part in his
characterization. Black also contributed a life of Oliver Goldsmith to
the _English Men of Letters_ series.

BLACK APE, a sooty, black, short-tailed, and long-faced representative
of the macaques, inhabiting the island of Celebes, and generally
regarded as forming a genus by itself, under the name of _Cynopithecus
niger_, but sometimes relegated to the rank of a subgenus of _Macacus_.
The nostrils open obliquely at some distance from the end of the snout,
and the head carries a crest of long hair. There are several local
races, one of which was long regarded as a separate species under the
name of the Moor macaque, _Macacus maurus_. (See PRIMATES.)

BLACKBALL, a token used for voting by ballot against the election of a
candidate for membership of a club or other association. Formerly white
and black balls about the size of pigeons' eggs were used respectively
to represent votes for and against a candidate for such election; and
although this method is now generally obsolete, the term "blackball"
survives both as noun and verb. The rules of most clubs provide that a
stated proportion of "blackballs" shall exclude candidates proposed for
election, and the candidates so excluded are said to have been
"blackballed"; but the ballot (q.v.) is now usually conducted by a
method in which the favourable and adverse votes are not distinguished
by different coloured balls at all. Either voting papers are employed,
or balls--of which the colour has no significance--are cast into
different compartments of a ballot-box according as they are favourable
or adverse to the candidate.

BLACKBERRY, or BRAMBLE, known botanically as _Rubus fruticosus_ (natural
order Rosaceac), a native of the north temperate region of the Old
World, and abundant in the British Isles as a copse and hedge-plant. It
is characterized by its prickly stem, leaves with usually three or five
ovate, coarsely toothed stalked leaflets, many of which persist through
the winter, white or pink flowers in terminal clu