Word: cott
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LONG, LONG AGO-Alexander Wooll-cott- Viking...
...juiciest borrowed plums in public with a happy little verbal smirk that meant: "What a smart boy am I." Last month he did it again (posthumously) in Long, Long Ago, a very satisfactory second course to his highly comestible While Rome Burns (TIME, March 12, 1934). Most of Wooll-cott's plums are still on the sugary side, but the best ones have a pleasantly astringent...
Disguise. Some animals, says Cott. "are impostors rather than self-effacers." Typical examples...
Advertisement. "Many animals, far from being concealingly colored, are very conspicuous objects in nature." Brightness is often used by animals for sexual or signaling purposes, but Cott's concern is only with the relations of prey and predator. As a rule, if an animal advertises its presence, it is a good bet that a predator wouldn't want it anyway. Birds and fishes are likely to mistake inanimate objects for the insects on which they feed, so they can easily mistake an unpalatable insect for a tasty one-unless the former distinguishes himself by loud red, orange...
...Cott quotes a fellow naturalist: "In . . . Tanganyika a small moth resembling a bird-dropping was not uncommon. On one occasion I observed what I thought to be one on a leaf, but after a close examination from a distance of only a few inches I discovered (to my own satisfaction) that it was after all only a bird-dropping. Just as I turned away the said bird-dropping flew...