Units of measurement in France before the French Revolution (league) had a number of variations, particularly the "aune" (which was used to measure cloth The "loi du 19 frimaire an VIII" (Law of 10 December 1799) states that one decimal metre is exactly 443.296 French lines, or "3 pieds 11.296 lignes de la "Toise du Pérou"". Thus the French royal foot is exactly 9000/27,706 metres (about 0.3248 m). In Quebec, the surveys in French units were converted using the relationship 1 "pied" (of the French variety, the same word being used for English feet as well) = 12.789 English inches. This makes the Quebec "pied" very slightly smaller (about
Pied-winged swallow Pied-winged swallow The pied-winged swallow ("Hirundo leucosoma") is a species of bird in the family Hirundinidae. It has distinctive steel-blue upperparts with white wing patches. It is native to parts of West Africa. The pied-winged swallow was described by the English ornithologist William Swainson in 1837 who introduced its current binomial name "Hirundo leucosoma". The specific epithet combines the Ancient Greek words "leukos", "white" and "sōma, sōmatos", "body". The species is monotypic. Evolutionarily, the pied-winged swallow occupies a basal position within the clade of "Hirundo" swallows and is most closely related to the pearl-breasted swallow ("Hirundo dimidiata"). The pied-winged swallow