mes, of course, from the idea of the continual
pecking of a hen.

Many common articles are named after animals which they resemble in
some way. A "ram" is an instrument, generally of wood, used to drive
things into place by pressure. In olden days war-ships used to have a
"battering-ram," or projecting beak, at their prow, with which to
"ram" other vessels. The Romans called such a beak an _aries_, which
is the Latin for "ram," a male sheep. This was probably from the habit
of rams butting an enemy with their horns. The Romans often had the
ends of their battering-rams carved into the shape of the head of a
ram. A "ramrod" gets its name from the same idea. It is an instrument
for pressing in the ammunition when loading the muzzle of a gun.

The word "ram" has now several more general uses. We speak of a person
"ramming" things into a drawer or bag when we mean pushing them
hastily and untidily into too small a place. Or a man may "ram" his
hat down on his head. Again, we may have a lesson or unpleasant fact
"rammed" into us by some one who is determined to make the subject
clear whether we want to hear about it or not. And all this comes from
the simple idea of the ram butting people whom it considers
unpleasant.

More commonplace instruments having animals' names are the
"clothes'-horse" and "fire-dogs."

We have other words, which we should not guess to be from animals'
names, but which really are so. We say that a person who is always
changing his mind, and wanting first one thing and then another, is
"capricious." Or we speak of a curious or unreasonable desire as a
"caprice." These words really come from the Latin name for a
goat--_caper_. The mind of the capricious person skips about just like
a goat. At least that is what the word _capricious_ literally says
about him. The word _caper_, meaning to "jump about playing tricks,"
comes from the Latin word _capra_, a "she-goat."

The word _coward_ comes from the name of an animal, but _not_ the cow.
In a famous French story of the Middle Ages, in which all the
characters are animals, the "Roman de Renard," the hare is called
_couard_, and it is from this that the word _coward_ ("one who runs
away from danger") comes.

All these words from the names of animals take us back, then, to the
days when every man was a kind of naturalist. In those early days,
when town life hardly existed, everybody knew all about animals and
their habits. Their conversation was full