One possible way of answering such a question might be to examine what kind of names people tend to give to them. Substantial groundwork was laid out in ‘La pensée sauvage’ written in 1962 by the eminent French anthropologist and ethnologist (the late) Claude Lévi-Strauss. The book outlined his discoveries regarding subtle differences in the […]
Tag: Birds
The Value of Vomit (for Rollers)
Vomit is, for the birds, of fearful value, suggests this study: “Rollers smell the fear of nestlings,” D. Parejo, L. Amo, J. Rodríguez and J.M. Avilés, Biology Letters, epub 2012. The authors, at EEZA, CSIC, Almería, Spain, report: “Some bird species produce chemical compounds when threatened, such as nestlings of the Eurasian roller Coracias garrulus [pictured […]
The effect of climate change on great tits
This new study relates two much-discussed topics: “A model approach to project the start of egg laying of Great Tit (Parus major L.) in response to climate change,” Frank-M. Chmielewski, Klaus Blümel, Carina Scherbaum-Heberer, Bettina Koppmann-Rumpf, Karl-Heinz Schmidt, International Journal of Biometeorology, vol. 57, no. 2, March 2013, pp 287-297. (Thanks to investigator Tom Gill […]
Shakespearian delicious butchery terms
The Shakespeare’s England blog has a list of cooking/butchery words and phrases that involve certain animals. The list includes the following (and many others); I stumbled upon these rather charming 17th Century cooking terms today. To Carve is to Cut up a Dish of Meat, but according to the Meats, use these Terms for their […]