Subject: An "Urban Legend"?
Date: Jul 1 13:02:44 1999
From: Mullerin at aol.com - Mullerin at aol.com


Thanks, Michael, for your interesting additions and speculations....but it
could be a landbird under the proper, and somewhat articifial circumstances.
I recall seeing a photograph of a robin feeding a goldfish from the side of
an artificial pond in Alcock's "Animal Behavior," the textbook we used in an
ethology class about 15 years ago. The suggestion was that the robin had lost
a brood, but was still responding to the gape stimulus....

Of course, this would not be the first time that a whimsical piece of fiction
ended up in a text book, but that photo really stuck in my mind.... that and
the vomiting blue jay who had eaten a Monarch butterfly (and never would
again, unlike some humans I know.....)

Thanks, Michael, for your interesting additions and speculations!

Marilyn Milberger