THS 



ORGANIZED 

 KNOWLEDGE 



GDK 



Ifi" STORY 

 ANtf PICTURE 



Dd 



A t>D 



D, the fourth letter in the English 



alphabet, which was developed from 



the Greek A or delta, written in the 



form of a triangle. When the Greeks 



adopted this letter they changed its 



name from daleth, meaning door, to 



delta. The Phoenicians called the character daleth, or door, because it resembled the 

 door of a tent, a familiar object at all times to those peoples. To make the sound of 

 d the tip of the tongue is touched to the roof of the mouth and the breath is then 

 forcibly expelled. 



In Roman notation D represents 500 and with a horizontal stroke over it (D) it 



stands for 5,000. In music it is the ft ^ ^. 



second note in the natural scale of M.fi I*- I* {|(S6 . J lJ 

 C, and is the third string of the violin. 



DACHSHUND, daKhs'hoont, a long-bodied, 

 short-legged dog of German origin, once used 

 in Central Europe almost solely for hunting 

 badgers but now kept as a pet in households 

 of many countries. It is a sturdy animal, with 

 strongly-developed muscles. This strangely- 

 formed dog has been humorously described as 

 being "a dog and a half long and half a dog 

 high." It has a long, round body, with short, 

 thick, somewhat crooked legs; its paws are 

 turned outward, and it has a long, conical 

 head, tapering toward the nose. The broad, 

 rounded ears are long and drooping, and the 



THE DACHSHUND 



tail is long and tapering. This type of dog 

 has many admirers. The coat of most dachs- 

 hunds is short, thick and silky, of a reddish- 

 brown tint, but sometimes is black and tan, 



gray and tan, or spotted. A variety late in 

 becoming popular is rough-coated. 



DADDY-LONG-LEGS, a term applied in 

 America to the harvestman or grandfather 

 greybeard, a harmless, spiderlike insect with 

 an oval body and long, slender legs. These 

 legs are bent in the middle, so when it walks 

 its body almost 

 touches the 

 ground. Its food 

 consists of small 

 insects. 



In England the 

 term signifies the 

 crane fly, which 

 also has long, 

 slender legs, but DADDY-LONG-LEGS 

 has wings and resembles a mosquito. A species 

 of crane fly which lives in the earth destroys 

 grains and grass, and is found in the United 

 States and Canada as well as in England. 



DAEDALUS, dcd'alus, a sculptor, architect 

 and artisan of Greek mythology, worshiped by 

 ancient artists' guilds as the personification of 

 art and as the inventor of carpentry and many 

 tools. The name is from the Greek, and means 

 the cunning worker. Through jealousy, ac- 

 cording to the myth, Daedalus killed his 

 nephew and pupil, Taloa, and was obliged to 



1685 



