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Fatu-liva
The Fatu-liva is a fictional species of bird invented by George S. Chappell in his travel parody ''The Cruise of the Kawa: Wanderings in the South Seas, by Walter E. Traprock'' (1921). Fatu-liva were said to be found only in the fictional "Filbert Islands" in the South Pacific Ocean where they laid cube-like, black-spotted eggs that were very similar in appearance to dice. The bird's nest was described in the book as: "...a semi-spheric bowl of closely woven grass in which lay four snow-white, polka-dotted cubes, the marvelous square eggs of the ''fatu-liva''."Chappell (1921) Additionally, a black-and-white photograph of what was supposedly the bird's dice-like eggs was provided. Its caption read: "This is without question the most extraordinary picture which has ever been taken of any natural history subject. It corroborates in most convincing manner the author's claim to the discovery of the wonderful ''fatu-liva'' bird with its unique gift of laying square eggs. Here we see t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gillygaloo
In American folklore, the gillygaloo bird is a fearsome critter that nest on hillsides and lays square eggs, so they will not roll. The eggs are also spotted giving them the characteristics of dice if hard-boiled. Name usage The term gillygaloo has existed since the late nineteenth century. It appears in writing in 1899 among a collection of stories told by Adirondack Mountains, Adirondack guides entitled ''In The Land of the Loon'', by Frank Kimball Scribner and Earl Williams Mayo. The term is applied to an ordinary trout as part of a practical joke on unsuspecting vacationers. Likewise, the name reappears in the periodical ''The Echo of Seneca'', published annually by the junior class of Hobart College, in Geneva, New York, referencing the location of a banquet held in 1893. The first record of gillygalloo to apply to the eponymous bird appears in the print in "Paul Bunyan Natural History" by folklorist Charles E. Brown in 1935. Characteristics The pamphlet "Paul Bunyan Nat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bird
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweight skeleton. Birds live worldwide and range in size from the bee hummingbird to the ostrich. There are about ten thousand living species, more than half of which are passerine, or "perching" birds. Birds have whose development varies according to species; the only known groups without wings are the extinct moa and elephant birds. Wings, which are modified forelimbs, gave birds the ability to fly, although further evolution has led to the loss of flight in some birds, including ratites, penguins, and diverse endemic island species. The digestive and respiratory systems of birds are also uniquely adapted for flight. Some bird species of aquatic environments, particularly seabirds and some waterbirds, have further evolved for swimming. B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George S
George may refer to: People * George (given name) * George (surname) * George (singer), American-Canadian singer George Nozuka, known by the mononym George * George Washington, First President of the United States * George W. Bush, 43rd President of the United States * George H. W. Bush, 41st President of the United States * George V, King of Great Britain, Ireland, the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 1910-1936 * George VI, King of Great Britain, Ireland, the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 1936-1952 * Prince George of Wales * George Papagheorghe also known as Jorge / GEØRGE * George, stage name of Giorgio Moroder * George Harrison, an English musician and singer-songwriter Places South Africa * George, Western Cape ** George Airport United States * George, Iowa * George, Missouri * George, Washington * George County, Mississippi * George Air Force Base, a former U.S. Air Force base located in California Characters * George (Peppa Pig), a 2-year-old pig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South Pacific Ocean
South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþaz'' ("south"), possibly related to the same Proto-Indo-European root that the word ''sun'' derived from. Some languages describe south in the same way, from the fact that it is the direction of the sun at noon (in the Northern Hemisphere), like Latin meridies 'noon, south' (from medius 'middle' + dies 'day', cf English meridional), while others describe south as the right-hand side of the rising sun, like Biblical Hebrew תֵּימָן teiman 'south' from יָמִין yamin 'right', Aramaic תַּימנַא taymna from יָמִין yamin 'right' and Syriac ܬܰܝܡܢܳܐ taymna from ܝܰܡܝܺܢܳܐ yamina (hence the name of Yemen, the land to the south/right of the Levant). Navigation By convention, the ''bottom or down-facing side'' of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Egg (biology)
An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the animal hatches. Most arthropods such as insects, vertebrates (excluding live-bearing mammals), and mollusks lay eggs, although some, such as scorpions, do not. Reptile eggs, bird eggs, and monotreme eggs are laid out of water and are surrounded by a protective shell, either flexible or inflexible. Eggs laid on land or in nests are usually kept within a warm and favorable temperature range while the embryo grows. When the embryo is adequately developed it hatches, i.e., breaks out of the egg's shell. Some embryos have a temporary egg tooth they use to crack, pip, or break the eggshell or covering. The largest recorded egg is from a whale shark and was in size. Whale shark eggs typically hatch within the mother. At and up to , the o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dice
Dice (singular die or dice) are small, throwable objects with marked sides that can rest in multiple positions. They are used for generating random values, commonly as part of tabletop games, including dice games, board games, role-playing games, and games of chance. A traditional die is a cube with each of its six faces marked with a different number of dots ( pips) from one to six. When thrown or rolled, the die comes to rest showing a random integer from one to six on its upper surface, with each value being equally likely. Dice may also have polyhedral or irregular shapes, may have faces marked with numerals or symbols instead of pips and may have their numbers carved out from the material of the dice instead of marked on it. Loaded dice are designed to favor some results over others for cheating or entertainment. History Dice have been used since before recorded history, and it is uncertain where they originated. It is theorized that dice developed from the practice ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Photograph
A photograph (also known as a photo, image, or picture) is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor, such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are now created using a smartphone/camera, which uses a lens to focus the scene's visible wavelengths of light into a reproduction of what the human eye would see. The process and practice of creating such images is called photography. Etymology The word ''photograph'' was coined in 1839 by Sir John Herschel and is based on the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light," and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing," together meaning "drawing with light." History The first permanent photograph, a contact-exposed copy of an engraving, was made in 1822 using the bitumen-based "heliography" process developed by Nicéphore Niépce. The first photographs of a real-world scene, made using a camera obscura, followed a few years later at Le Gras, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fatu Hiva
Fatu-Hiva (the "H" is not pronounced, see name section below) is the southernmost island of the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia, an overseas territory of France in the Pacific Ocean. With Motu Nao as its closest neighbor, it is also the most isolated of the inhabited islands. ''Fatu Hiva'' is also the title of a book by explorer and archaeologist Thor Heyerdahl, in which he describes his stay on the island in the 1930s. Name The name of the island in Marquesan is Fatu Iva (without "h": ). However, the name was recorded by Europeans as ''Fatu-Hiva,'' perhaps under the influence of other Marquesan islands containing the element ''Hiva'' ( Nuku-Hiva and Hiva-Oa) and also because in French the letter "h" is silent. The spelling ''Fatu-Hiva'' has now become official. The island was named ''Isla Magdalena'' ("Magdalene Island") by Spanish explorers in the 16th century, a name rarely used. Hatauheva is another name form that appears in 1817, by Camille de Roquefeuil during h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marquesan Language
Marquesan is a collection of East-Central Polynesian dialects, of the Marquesic group, spoken in the Marquesas Islands of French Polynesia. They are usually classified into two groups, North Marquesan and South Marquesan, roughly along geographic lines.See Charpentier & François (2015). Phonology The most striking feature of the Marquesan languages is their almost universal replacement of the or of other Polynesian languages by a (glottal stop). Like other Polynesian languages, the phonology of Marquesan languages is characterized by a scarcity of consonants and a comparative abundance of vowels. The consonant phonemes are: Of this small number of consonants, is found only in eastern Nuku Hiva (Tai Pi Marquesan), and is found only in South Marquesan dialects. In writing, the phoneme is written , and is written , the okina. Unlike Samoan, the is not an isolated nasal: it is found only in conjunction with a following . So, whereas the Samoan word for 'bay' is , pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polynesian Languages
The Polynesian languages form a genealogical group of languages, itself part of the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian family. There are 38 Polynesian languages, representing 7 percent of the 522 Oceanic languages, and 3 percent of the Austronesian family. While half of them are spoken in geographical Polynesia (the Polynesian triangle), the other half – known as Polynesian outliers – are spoken in other parts of the Pacific: from Micronesia to atolls scattered in Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands or Vanuatu. The most prominent Polynesian languages, in number of speakers, are Tahitian, Samoan, Tongan, Māori and Hawaiian. The ancestors of modern Polynesians were Lapita navigators, who settled in the Tonga and Samoa areas about 3,000 years ago. Linguists and archaeologists estimate that this first population went through common development during about 1000 years, giving rise to Proto-Polynesian, the linguistic ancestor of all modern Polynesian languages. A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Ascent Of Rum Doodle
''The Ascent of Rum Doodle'' is a short 1956 novel by W. E. Bowman (1911–1985). It is a parody of the non-fictional chronicles of mountaineering expeditions (notably H. W. Tilman's account of the ascent of Nanda Devi and Maurice Herzog's book ''Annapurna'' chronicling the first ascent of Annapurna in Nepal) that were popular during the 1950s, as many of the world's highest peaks were climbed for the first time. A new edition was released in 2001 with an introduction by the contemporary humorist Bill Bryson. It has been critically well received. Though a parody, it has become one of the most famous and celebrated books of mountaineering literature. The book has been republished several times since 1956. The current edition is published by Pimlico, an imprint of Random House. In January 2009, ''The Guardian'' included it in the '1000 Novels Everyone Must Read'. Synopsis The narrator, "Binder" (his radio codename), is asked by the "Rum Doodle Committee" and its chairman, "Sir Hug ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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