Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Montgomery, L. M.

(Encyclopedia)Montgomery, L. M. (Lucy Maud Montgomery), 1874–1942, Canadian novelist, b. Prince Edward Island. Her first novel, Anne of Green Gables (1908), met with immediate success and has been widely translat...

Warner, Rex

(Encyclopedia)Warner, Rex, 1905–86, English author, b. Birmingham, grad. Oxford, 1928. A classical scholar noted for his translations from Greek and Latin, Warner taught in England, Egypt, and the United States. ...

Seton, Ernest Thompson

(Encyclopedia)Seton, Ernest Thompson, 1860–1946, American writer and artist, b. England. His name was originally Ernest Seton Thompson. His stories and paintings of wildlife, especially Wild Animals I Have Known ...

venison

(Encyclopedia)venison vĕnˈĭzən [key] [O.Fr.,=hunting], term formerly applied to the flesh of any wild beast or game hunted and used for food but now restricted to the flesh of members of the deer family. The me...

Via Mala

(Encyclopedia)Via Mala vēˈä mäˈlä [key], narrow gorge of the Hinterrhein River, a headstream of the Rhine, c.31⁄2 mi (6 km) long, Grisons canton, E Switzerland. One of the most wild and picturesque gorges i...

Muybridge, Eadweard

(Encyclopedia)Muybridge, Eadweard ĕdˈwərd mīˈbrĭj [key], 1830–1904, English-born photographer and student of animal locomotion. Muybridge changed his name from Edward James Muggeridge. A gifted and obsessed...

bonobo

(Encyclopedia)bonobo, smaller of two species of chimpanzee, genus Pan. Whereas the common chimpanzee, P. troglodytes, lives in forests across most of equatorial Africa, the bonobo, P. paniscus (sometimes called the...

rye, in botany

(Encyclopedia)rye, cereal grain of the family Poaceae (grass family). The grain, Secale cereale, is important chiefly in Central and N Europe. It seems to have been domesticated later than wheat and other staple gr...

coot

(Encyclopedia)coot, common name for a migratory marsh bird related to rails and gallinules and found in North America and Europe. The American coot (Fulica americana), or mud hen, is slate gray with a white bill, b...

Hambletonian

(Encyclopedia)Hambletonian hămbəltōˈnēən [key], 1849–76, American trotting horse, foaled at Chester, N.Y. Originally owned by Jonas Seely, Hambletonian was bought for little money by Bill Rysdyk and won few...