Another Short History of Linguistics (18)

Another pair of male and female is 雄雌, they particularly refer to birds. Reference from:

http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_640c60e00101c4f9.html 

The symbol 隹means ‘bird’

Pic from: http://dict.shufaji.com/word-2780.html

雌means female the 此means foot or toe, it is the same thing with 止：

Pic from: http://dict.shufaji.com/word-3202.html

And the character 雌 at beginning is 此 on top 隹 at bottom:

Pic from: http://dict.shufaji.com/word-2796.html

It means when mating, the female bird always under the toe of male birds.

Pic from: http://www.dxyer.cn/upload/7/444/p_50835.jpg

The left part of 雄, is from the character 公. We have told before. Normally, these pair of characters 雄雌 represent the male and female of plant, bird and fish.