A bad-tempered woman is described as a "vixen," or female fox; a lazy person as a "drone," or the bee which does no work. A stupid person may be called a "sheep" or a "goose" (which is not quite so insulting). _Dog_, _hound_, _cur_, and _puppy_ are all used as words of abuse; and contempt for some one who is regarded as very mean-spirited is sometimes shown by describing such a person as a "worm," or worse, if possible, a "reptile." A "bookworm," on the other hand, the name of a little insect which lives in books and eats away at paper and bindings, is applied to people who love books in another way--great readers--and is, of course, not at all an uncomplimentary word. A foolish person who has been easily deceived in some matter is often described as a "gull," or is said to have been "gulled." _Gull_ is now the name of a sea-bird, but in Early English it was used to describe any young bird, and from the idea that it is easy to deceive such youngsters came the use of the word to describe foolish people. Another name of a bird used with almost the opposite meaning is _rook_. This name is given to people who are constantly cheating others, especially at card games. It was earlier used, like _gull_, to describe the person cheated. It then came to be used as a verb meaning "to cheat," and from this was used to describe the person cheating instead of the person cheated. Other names of birds not quite so common used to describe stupid people are _dotterel_ and _dodo_. The dotterel is a bird which is very easily caught, and it was from this fact that it got its name, which comes from _dote_, to be "silly" or "feeble-minded." When the name of the bird is used to describe a silly person, the word is really, as an interesting writer on the history of words says, turning "a complete somersault." The same is the case with _dodo_, which is also used, but not so often, to describe a stupid person. This bird also got its name from a word which meant "foolish." It comes from the Portuguese word _doudo_, which means "simpleton." We have a few verbs also taken from the names of animals and birds. We say a person "apes" another when he tries to imitate him. This word comes, of course, from the fact that the ape is always imitating any action performed by other people.