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

BACCHUS, n. A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for getting drunk.Is public worship, then, a sin, That for devotions paid to Bacchus The lictors dare to run us in, And resolutely thump and whack us? --Jorace

LEVIATHAN, n. An enormous aquatic animal mentioned by Job. Some suppose it to have been the whale, but that distinguished ichthyologer, Dr. Jordan, of Stanford University, maintains with considerable heat that it was a species of gigantic Tadpole (_Thaddeus Polandensis_) or Polliwig --_Maria pseudo-hirsuta_. For an exhaustive description and history of the Tadpole consult the famous monograph of Jane Potter, _Thaddeus of Warsaw_.

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.A hunter from Kew caught a distant view Of a peacefully meditative gnu, And he said: "I'll pursue, and my hands imbrue In its blood at a closer interview." But that beast did ensue and the hunter it threw O'er the top of a palm that adjacent grew; And he said as he flew: "It is well I withdrew Ere, losing my temper, I wickedly slew That really meritorious gnu." --Jarn Leffer

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."

Learning, n. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.