On Mon, 17 May 1999, Michael Dossett wrote:
> This is kind of interesting...I never thought of taillessness being
> genetic. Does anyone else have similar experiences? The only tailless
> birds I have seen either grew their tails back, or raised normal
> young...I always assumed it was because they had a run in with a
> predator.

I suspected the predator hypothesis for the adult's lack of a tail,
especially because of its foot problem. The young are tailless so far, but
they appeared to be fresh out of the nest, too, and may not have shown
much tail at this early age.

Scott Richardson
Olympia
salix at halcyon.com