[EDITOR’S TABLE.]
[We solicit questions of interest to the readers of The Chautauquan to be answered in this department. Our space does not always allow us to answer as rapidly as questions reach us. Any relevant question will receive an answer in its turn.]
Q. Who was Achilles?
A. Achilles was the hero of Homer’s Iliad, the son of Peleus, King of Thessaly, and the sea-nymph, Thetis. The poets feigned that his mother dipped him into the river Styx to render him invulnerable, and that he was vulnerable only in the heel by which she held him. He was killed by Paris, or, as some say, by Apollo, who shot him in the heel.
Q. Is the cat considered, by scientific men, as a domestic animal?
A. Cat is the general name for animals of the genus felis, which comprises about fifty different species. The domestic cat is one of these species, and is generally believed to have sprung from the Egyptian cat, a native of the north of Africa. This seems to be the only species that is generally employed in household economy.
Q. Will The Chautauquan please recommend a dictionary that would be a help in pronouncing words found in the “History of Greece?”