The Devil and Ambrose Bierce: all about animals and man

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From the Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce...1911

 

CUNNING, n. The faculty that distinguishes a weak animal or person

from a strong one. It brings its possessor much mental satisfaction

and great material adversity. An Italian proverb says: " The furrier

gets the skins of more foxes than asses. "

 

 

FORK, n. An instrument used chiefly for the purpose of putting dead

animals into the mouth.

 

 

GNU, n. An animal of South Africa, which in its domesticated state

resembles a horse, a buffalo and a stag. In its wild condition it is

something like a thunderbolt, an earthquake and a cyclone.

 

 

 

HIPPOGRIFF, n. An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half

griffin. The griffin was a compound creature, half lion and half

eagle. The hippogriff was, therefore, only one quarter eagle, which

is $2.50 in gold. Zoology is full of surprises.

(............make that about $250.00 in today's gold..bn)

 

HYDRA, n. A kind of animal that the ancients catalogued under many

heads.

 

 

MAMMALIA, n.pl. A family of vertebrate animals whose females in a

state of nature suckle their young, but when civilized and

enlightened put them out to nurse, or use the bottle.

 

 

MAN, n. An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he

thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be.

 

 

 

MONKEY, n. An arboreal animal which makes itself at home in

genealogical trees.

 

 

 

MUMMY, n. An ancient Egyptian . . . handy, too, in museums in

gratifying the vulgar curiosity that serves to distinguish man from

the lower animals.

 

 

TAIL, n. The part of an animal's spine that has transcended its

natural limitations to set up an independent existence in a world of

its own.

 

 

WOMAN, n. An animal usually living in the vicinity of Man, and having

a rudimentary susceptibility to domestication.

 

posted by roberibus bob