(Encyclopedia) Snyder, Gary, 1930–, American poet, b. San Francisco. Associated with the beat generation of the 1950s, he lived (1956–68) in Japan, where he trained as a Zen monk. His poetry,…
(Encyclopedia) basking shark, large, plankton-feeding shark, Cetorhinus maximus, inhabiting many oceans of the world, especially in temperate regions. Found singly or in schools of up to 100, it…
(Encyclopedia) pikapikapīˈkə [key], short-haired mammal related to rabbits and hares, also called mouse hare and rock rabbit. Pikas live above the timber line in the mountains of N Asia and W North…
(Encyclopedia) slate, fine-grained rock formed when sedimentary rocks such as shale are metamorphosed by great pressure. Slate splits into perfectly cleaved, broad thin layers; this…
(Encyclopedia) Siberian husky, breed of medium-sized, muscular working dog whose origins date back thousands of years in Siberia. It stands from 20 to 231&fslsh;2 in. (50.8–59.7 cm) high at the…
(Encyclopedia) kangaroo, name for a variety of hopping marsupials, or pouched mammals, of the family Macropodidae, found in Australia, Tasmania, and New Guinea. The term is applied especially to the…
(Encyclopedia) dingodingodĭngˈgō [key], wild dog (Canis lupus dingo) of Australia, believed to have been introduced thousands of years ago from SE Asia by the aboriginal settlers of that continent;…
(Encyclopedia) crossbill, bird of the genus Loxia, in the finch family. Its bill, crossed at the tips, is specialized for pulling apart pine cones and picking out the seeds. Crossbills are found in…
(Encyclopedia) decadents, in literature, name loosely applied to those 19th-century, fin-de-siècle European authors who sought inspiration, both in their lives and in their writings, in aestheticism…
(Encyclopedia) harp seal, crested earless, or true, seal, Phoca groenlandica, found in the N Atlantic around Greenland and the White Sea. In the spring, harp seals migrate southward to assemble in…
