eatures 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 wild creature comes
instantly to his mind, but if you ask him _why_ it is called a wolf, a
hundred chances to one he will look blankly at you. It is the old fault,
so common among us human beings, of ignoring the things which lie nearest
us. Or perhaps your friend shares the state of mind of the puzzled old
lady, who, after looking over a collection of fossil bones, said that she
could understand how these bones had been preserved, and millions of years
later had been discovered, but it was a mystery to her how anyone could
know the names of these ancient animals after such a lapse of time!

Some of the names of the commonest animals are lost in the dimness of
antiquity, such as fox, weasel, sheep, dog, and baboon. Of the origin of
these we have forever lost the clew. With camel we can go no farther back
than the Latin word _camelus_, and elephant balks us with the old Hindoo
word _eleph_, which means an ox. The old root of the word wolf meant one
who tears or rends, and the application to this animal is obvious. In
several English and German names of persons, we have handed down to us a
relic of the old fashion of applying wolf as a compliment to a warrior or
soldier. For example, Adolph means noble-wolf, and Rudolph glory-wolf.

Lynx is from the same Latin word as the word _lux_ (light) and probably
was given to these wildcats on account of the brightness of their eyes.
Lion is, of course, from the Latin _leo_, which word, in turn, is lost far
back in the Egyptian tongue, where the word for the king of beasts was
_labu_. The compound word leopard is first found in the Persian language,
where _pars_ stands for panther. Seal, very appropriately, was once a word
meaning "of th