Random reminder
NATURAL HISTORY LESSON
Cassowary: Large bird related to the ostrich. — (Pocket Oxford Dictionary.) If I were a cassowary On the plains of Timbuctoo 1 would eat a missionary Cassock, band, and hymnbook too. — (Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Winchester, died 1873). Entrepreneurs who think to grow rich by smuggling cassowarys from Papua New Guinea must not be misled by photographs of the birdTrue, it is strikingly beautiful. Grey butting crest, sky-blue skin to the skull, red eyes (black-pupilled), orange neck with a tuft of blue, straggly
black feathers. But it is also strikingly striking. A teacher at the Mendi High school, Papua New Guinea, writes: “They are the most dangerous animal to man, especially those raised by man, since they then have no fear. They attack with no warning, leaping up to two metres in the air to dropkick you in the head, then disembowelling with the inside claw. Four deaths in this valley in six months where folk were kicked to death by their pets.” As far as is ascertainable, Bishop Wilberforce never visited Papua New Guinea,
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Press, 4 January 1980, Page 14
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179Random reminder Press, 4 January 1980, Page 14
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