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From: ktw@whuxi.UUCP (WOLMAN)
Newsgroups: net.jokes
Subject: Shaggy Bird Story
Message-ID: <211@whuxi.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 20-Dec-84 08:50:31 EST
Article-I.D.: whuxi.211
Posted: Thu Dec 20 08:50:31 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 21-Dec-84 02:11:55 EST
Organization: Bell Labs, Whippany, N.J.
Lines: 33

An explorer on safari through Africa discovers a magnificently
plumed bird known as a Raree.  The bird is near death from
exhaustion and starvation brought about by a combination of
poachers and climatic changes which have turned its once-friendly
environment into a death-trap.  The bird is uncharacteristically
docile, and does not flee from the explorer when he approaches it.  
The explorer had believed the Raree birds were an extinct species; 
and so to save the creature from an environment which has become 
hostile, and to preserve the species, he brings it back with 
him to the United States.

Proper feeding and warmth bring the bird around to its normal
behavior.  Far from being docile, the Raree bird reverts to being
a pain in the ass.  It tears open the refrigerator with its
beak and rummages around for food.  It overturns garbage cans
and rummages around for food.  Its instinctive loudness and
viciousness reassert themselves, and the explorer finds himself
gradually losing his mind.  He decides to do away with the
Raree, figuring that if nature had wanted the species to survive,
it would have given the birds better survival skills.

He loads the Raree into a pickup truck and drives to a high
cliff.  He has put drugs into the bird's morning feed so it is
docile.  He binds its wings and hauls it over to the edge of
a 300-foot-high cliff overlooking the ocean.  The bird opens
its eyes, looks down, and says to the explorer:

	"It's a long way to tip a Raree."


Ken Wolman
Bellcore @ Livingston Home for Degenerate Tech Editors
whuxi!ktw