>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Subject: Penguins
>
>PEOPLE WITH TOO MUCH FREE TIME....
>
>A Mexican newspaper reports that bored Royal Air Force pilots stationed
>on the Falkland Islands have devised what they consider a marvelous new
>game. Noting that the local penguins are fascinated by airplanes, the
>pilots search out a beach where the birds are gathered and fly slowly
>along it at the water edge. Perhaps ten thousand penguins turn their
>heads in unison watching the planes go by, and when the pilots turn
>around and fly back, the birds turn their heads in the opposite
>direction, like spectators at a slow-motion tennis match. Then, the
>paper reports, "The pilots fly out to sea and directly to the penguin
>colony and overfly it. Heads go up, up, up, and ten thousand penguins
>fall over gently onto their backs.

This is one I would take with a grain of salt (even better if the salt was
applied to the rim of a big margarita glass). Not that it couldn't be, but
somehow I don't think even penguins are that dumb. Not all of them, and
not repeatedly. "You can fool all of the birds some of the time, and some
of the birds all of the time . . ." But I've been wrong before.

Dennis Paulson, Director phone 206-756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax 206-756-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416