JUMPING-SHREW, a popular name for any of the terrestrial insectivora of the African family _Macroscelididae_, of which there are a number of species ranging over the African continent, representing the tree-shrews of Asia. They are small long-snouted gerbil-like animals, mainly nocturnal, feeding on insects, and characterized by the great length of the metatarsal bones, which have been modified in accordance with their leaping mode of progression. In some (constituting the genus _Rhyncocyon_) the muzzle is so much prolonged as to resemble a proboscis, whence the name elephant-shrews is sometimes applied to the members of the family.

JUNAGARH, or JUNAGADH, a native state of India, within the Gujarat division of Bombay, extending inland from the southern coast of the peninsula of Kathiawar. Area, 3284 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 395,428, showing a decrease of 19% in the decade, owing to famine; estimated gross revenue, £174,000; tribute to the British government and the gaekwar of Baroda, £4200; a considerable sum is also received as tribute from minor states in Kathiawar. The state is traversed by a railway from Rajkot, to the seaport of Verawal. It includes the sacred mountain of Girnar and the ruined temple of Somnath, and also the forest of Gir, the only place in India where the lion survives. Junagarh ranks as a first-class state among the many chiefships of Kathiawar, and its ruler first entered into engagements with the British in 1807. Nawab Sir Rasul Khanji, K.C.S.I., was born in 1858 and succeeded his brother in 1892.

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 15, Slice 5 — Part 210

The modern town of JUNAGARH (34,251), 60 m. by rail S. of Rajkot, is handsomely built and laid out. In November 1897 the foundation-stones of a hospital, library and museum were laid, and an arts college has recently been opened.

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 15, Slice 5 — Part 210

JUNCACEAE (rush family), in botany, a natural order of flowering plants belonging to the series Liliiflorae of the class Monocotyledons, containing about two hundred species in seven genera, widely distributed in temperate and cold regions. It is well represented in Britain by the two genera which comprise nearly the whole order--_Juncus_, rush, and _Luzula_, woodrush. They are generally perennial herbs with a creeping underground stem and erect, unbranched, aerial stems, bearing slender leaves which are grass-like or cylindrical or reduced to membranous sheaths. The small inconspicuous flowers are generally more or less crowded in terminal or lateral clusters, the form of the inflorescence varying widely according to the manner of branching and the length of the pedicels. The flowers are hermaphrodite and regular, with the same number and arrangement of parts as in the order Liliaceae, from which they differ in the inconspicuous membranous character of the perianth, the absence of honey or smell, and the brushlike stigmas with long papillae-adaptations to wind-pollination as contrasted with the methods of pollination by insect agency, which characterize the Liliaceae. Juncaceae are, in fact, a less elaborated group of the same series as Liliaceae, but adapted to a simpler and more uniform environment than that larger and much more highly developed family.

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 15, Slice 5 — Part 210