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.

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.

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.