THE NAMES OF ANIMALS, FROGS, AND FISH 



HEN, during the lazy autumn days, the 

 living creatures seem for a time to have 

 taken themselves completely beyond 

 our ken, it may be interesting to delve among old 

 records and descriptions of animals and see how 

 the names by which we know them first came to 

 be given. Many of our English names have an 

 unsuspected ancestry, which, through past centuries, has 

 been handed down to us through many changes of spelling 

 and meaning, of romantic as well as historical interest. 



How many people regard the scientific Latin and Greek 

 names of animals with horror, as being absolutely beyond 

 their comprehension, and yet how interesting these names 

 become when we look them squarely in the face, analyse 

 them and find the appropriateness of their application. 

 When you say "wolf" to a person, the image of that 



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