The past few days, I noticed crocuses springing up: yellow ones in the lawn around the library, then purple ones in the local park as I crossed to read on a sun-drenched bench.
And this morning, I tried to find the word that Jonathan Strange uses to address Drawlight in Venice, only a little handicapped by never having seen it in print; in the audiobook, it had sounded like "Croquitur" (and thus sprang to mind with the word "crocus"). It turns out the word is "Leucrocuta," which the Tor.com re-read helpfully glosses with a link to a medieval bestiary:
The leucrota is a swift beast that lives in India. It is a composite animal, the result of a mating between a hyena and a lioness, the same size as an ass, but with a horse's head, chest and legs like a lion, hind quarters like a stag, and cloven hoofs. It has an extremely wide mouth, that stretches from one ear to the other. It does not have individual teeth, but only a single bone where teeth should be. Like the hyena, the leucrota can make sounds that resemble human speech.
No wonder poor, vain Drawlight is so worried about Strange's threat to change him to this form.
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