An additional large triangular flaplike appendage at the rear of the head is thickened along its margin.

Traditionally a village smithy was a busy place because the smith's work was so necessary.

But Powers, a former staff writer at The Washington Post who has written extensively on media and technology, is not simply an earnest foreteller of doom.

Our mother kept a dozen chickens, two turkeys, a few ducks and a guinea fowl. They were our ‘yard fowls’. She had caused our father to build coops of wood, board and wire-netting for them. We kept the yard fowls cooped up during the planting season each year so they wouldn’t pick the leaves off the young corn.