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.
A person who follows another persistently is said to "dog" his steps. This expression comes, of course, from the fact of dogs following their masters. Another expression is to "hound" a person to do something, by which we mean persecute him. This comes from the idea of a hound tracking its victim down. Another of these words which has the idea of persecution is _badger_. When some one constantly talks about a subject which is unpleasant to another, or continually tries to persuade him to do something against his will, he is said to be "badgering" him. The badger is an animal which burrows into the ground in winter, and dogs are set to worry it out of its hiding-place. The badger is the victim and not the persecutor, as we might think from the use of the verb.
The verb _henpeck_, to describe the teasing of her husband by a disagreeable wife, comes, of course, from the idea of the continual pecking of a hen.
Many common articles are named after animals which they resemble in some way. A "ram" is an instrument, generally of wood, used to drive things into place by pressure. In olden days war-ships used to have a "battering-ram," or projecting beak, at their prow, with which to "ram" other vessels. The Romans called such a beak an _aries_, which is the Latin for "ram," a male sheep. This was probably from the habit of rams butting an enemy with their horns. The Romans often had the ends of their battering-rams carved into the shape of the head of a ram. A "ramrod" gets its name from the same idea. It is an instrument for pressing in the ammunition when loading the muzzle of a gun.