xpression we often hear, "as
stubborn as a mule." Only a few of the people who use this expression
can have had any experience of the stubbornness of mules. Sometimes a
stubborn person is described quite simply as a "mule." Another
compliment of the same sort is to call a person who seems to us to be
acting stupidly a "donkey."

We may say a person is as "greedy as a pig," or describe him with
disgust as a "pig," which may mean either that they are very greedy or
that they are behaving in a very ungracious or unmannerly way. A more
common description of a person of this sort is "a hog." Every one has
heard of the "road hogs," who drive their motors regardless of other
people's convenience or safety; and of the "food hogs," who tried to
store up food, or refused to ration themselves, and so shortened other
people's supplies of food in the Great War.

Other common expressions comparing people with animals are--"sulky as
a bear," "gay as a lark," "busy as a bee." We might also call a cross
person a "bear," but should not without some explanation call a person
a "lark" or a "bee."

We may say a person "chatters like a magpie," or we may call him or
her a "magpie." A person who talks without thinking, merely repeating
what other people have said, is often called a "parrot."

Sometimes names of common animals or birds used to describe people are
complimentary, but more often they are not. It seems as though the
people who made these metaphors were more eloquent in anger than in
love. A very nice child will be described by its friends as a "little
duck." A mischievous child may also be described good-temperedly as a
"monkey;" but there are far more words of abuse taken from the names
of animals than more or less amiable words like these.

A bad-tempered woman is described as a "vixen," or female fox; a lazy
person as a "drone," or the bee which does no work. A stupid person
may be called a "sheep" or a "goose" (which is not quite so
insulting). _Dog_, _hound_, _cur_, and _puppy_ are all used as words
of abuse; and contempt for some one who is regarded as very
mean-spirited is sometimes shown by describing such a person as a
"worm," or worse, if possible, a "reptile." A "bookworm," on the other
hand, the name of a little insect which lives in books and eats away
at paper and bindings, is applied to people who love books in another
way--great readers--and is, of course, not at all an uncomplimentary
word.

A foolish pers