wunder · Library

Part 33

Curious Creatures in Zoology · John Ashton — chapter 33 of 57 · ~315 words · public domain

Read in the Wunder reader — free

Or long livers, from μακρὸς, “long,” and βίος, “life.”

A palm was three inches, so that these men would be eight feet high.

From Γυμνητὴς, one who takes much bodily exercise.

Mirage.

Other editions read rough hair.

In Greek, Τοπάζω, means to guess, divine, or conjecture.

Burn.

Breast.

At war.

From τρεις, three, σπιθαμὰι, spans.

Other editions say six or seven years.

See his letters dated September 1888, which arrived in England early in April 1889.

Ox horns, horn cups.

A lake between Macedonia and Thrace.

The fishermen of lake Prasias still have lake dwellings as in the time of Herodotus.

The most abundant were the oyster, mussel, cockle, and periwinkle.

Transactions of the Ethnological Society, 1866, vol. iv., p. 34.

Thyrsi.

The italics are mine.--J. A.

From καταβλέπω, “to look downwards.”

Spirals.

Plaits.

Taking the Ducat at 9s. 4½d., it would come to £37,000, but if this were multiplied by three, the lowest computation of the value of money then, and now, it would be worth considerably over £100,000.

Another name for short--vide Cutty pipe--Cutty sark.

“An unlicked cub” is a proverb which has sprung from this fable. Aristotle was right when he said that bears when newly born were without hair, and blind, but wrong in continuing “its legs, and almost all its parts, are without joints.” Still, the popular idea that bears licked their young into shape, lasted till very modern times, and still survives in the proverb quoted. Shakespeare mentions it in 3 Henry VI. iii. 2:--

“Like to Chaos, or an unlick’d bear whelp, That carries no impression like the dam.”

And Chester, in his Love’s Martyr, speaking of the Bear, says--

“Brings forth at first a thing that’s indigest, A lump of flesh without all fashion, Which she, by often licking brings to rest, Making a formal body, good and sound. Which often in this iland we have found.”

← Previous chapterAll chaptersNext chapter →

Curious Creatures in Zoology · The Wunder Library — complete classics, free to read, with narration.

© 2026 Wunder Learning LLC · Terms & Privacy