Word: jaacob
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...animal kingdom," this lighthearted book traces the names of animals back to abstruse origins. (The lowly burrowing gopher, for example, derives from gaufre, the French word for honeycomb.) The illustrations are shaggy dog in style, but accompanying quotations from naturalists, explorers and novelists can be stern indeed. Thus Admiral Jaacob van Neck on the dodo bird, circa 1598: "They have thick heads only partially covered with feathers and in place of wings only a few black feathers. We called them DISGUSTING BIRDS, because the longer their flesh is cooked the more unpalatable it becomes." Sic transit dodo...
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