Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

bittern

(Encyclopedia)bittern, common name for migratory marsh birds of the family Ardeidae (heron family). The American bittern (Botaurus lentiginosus), often called “stake driver” because of a territorial male's boom...

roe deer

(Encyclopedia)roe deer, small, short-horned deer, Capreolus capreolus, of Britain and Europe and as far east as China and Siberia. Its coat is golden red in summer, darkening to brown or even black in winter, with ...

Shaw, Lemuel

(Encyclopedia)Shaw, Lemuel, 1781–1861, American jurist, b. Barnstable, Mass. After a career in the Massachusetts state legislature, Shaw served as chief justice for the supreme judicial court of Massachusetts (18...

pineapple

(Encyclopedia)pineapple, common name for one member of and for the Bromeliaceae, a family of chiefly epiphytic herbs and small shrubs native to the American tropics and subtropics. The spiny leaves of various speci...

Spokan

(Encyclopedia)Spokan or Spokane both: spōkănˈ [key], Native North Americans whose language belongs to the Salishan branch of the Algonquian-Wakashan linguistic stock (see Native American languages). In the early...

lynx

(Encyclopedia)lynx, name given to several related small, ferocious members of the cat family. All have small heads, tufted ears, and heavy bodies with long legs and short tails. All are primarily terrestrial, altho...

Van Dyck, Sir Anthony

(Encyclopedia)Van Dyck or Vandyke, Sir Anthony both: văn dīk [key], 1599–1641, Flemish portrait and religious painter and etcher, b. Antwerp. In 1618 he was received as a master in the artists' guild, but even ...

boa

(Encyclopedia)boa bōˈə [key], name for live-bearing constrictor snakes of the family Boidae, found mostly in the Americas. This family, which also comprises the egg-laying pythons of the Old World, includes the ...

Schubert, Franz Peter

(Encyclopedia)Schubert, Franz Peter fränts pāˈtər sho͞oˈbərt [key], 1797–1828, Austrian composer, one of the most gifted musicians of the 19th cent. His symphonic works represent the best legacy of the cla...

sea lion

(Encyclopedia)sea lion, fin-footed marine mammal of the eared seal family (Otariidae). Like the other member of this family, the fur seal, the sea lion is distinguished from the true seal by its external ears, long...