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walking stick

(Encyclopedia)walking stick or stick insect, names applied to extremely longbodied, slow-moving, herbivorous insects, forming a single family in the order Phasmatodea. Walking sticks have green, gray, or brown bodi...

Jonson, Ben

(Encyclopedia)Jonson, Ben, 1572–1637, English dramatist and poet, b. Westminster, London. The high-spirited buoyancy of Jonson's plays and the brilliance of his language have earned him a reputation as one of the...

Kodiak Island

(Encyclopedia)Kodiak Island kōˈdēăkˌ [key], 5,363 sq mi (13,890 sq km), c.100 mi (160 km) long and 10–60 mi (16–96 km) wide, off S Alaska, separated from the Alaska Peninsula by Shelikof Strait. Alaska's l...

Saint Helens, Mount

(Encyclopedia)Saint Helens, Mount, volcanic peak, 8,363 ft (2,549 m; 9,677 ft/2,950 m before its 1980 eruption) high, SW Wash., historically the most active volcano in the Cascade Range. Dormant since 1857, Mt. St....

Romulus

(Encyclopedia)Romulus rŏmˈyo͞oləs [key], in Roman legend, founder of Rome. When Amulius usurped the throne of his brother Numitor, king of Alba Longa, he forced Numitor's daughter, Rhea Silvia, to become a vest...

dauphin, French title

(Encyclopedia)dauphin dôˈfĭn, Fr. dōfăNˈ [key] [Fr.,=dolphin], French title, borne first by the counts of Vienne (also called Viennois) and later by the eldest son of the king of France, or, if the dauphin ca...

Farmer, James Leonard, Jr.

(Encyclopedia)Farmer, James Leonard, Jr., 1920–99, African-American civil-rights leader who was one of the principal civil-rights figures of the 1950s and 60s, b. Marshall, Tex., grad. Wiley College (B.S. 1938), ...

tundra

(Encyclopedia)tundra tŭnˈdrə [key], treeless plains of N North America and N Eurasia, lying principally along the Arctic Circle, on the coasts and islands of the Arctic Ocean, and to the north of the coniferous ...

pronghorn

(Encyclopedia)pronghorn or prongbuck, hoofed herbivorous mammal, Antilocapra americana, of the W United States and N Mexico. Although it is often called the American, or prong-horned, antelope, the pronghorn is the...

horsetail

(Encyclopedia)horsetail, any plant of the genus Equisetum [Lat.,=horse bristle], the single surviving genus of a large group (Equisetophyta) of primitive vascular plants. Like the ferns and club mosses, relatives o...