[BNM] [OT] pigeons

[Guy Davidson]

That turned up in Danny Champion of the World, by Roald Dahl.  The hero and
his dad spent an age splitting raisins and putting a short hair in each one.
The pheasant makes getting the raisin out of its throat a higher priority
than avoiding approaching predators, so feeding them these lovely morsels
made an excellent trap.

I don't know how true this is, although he did, like Jeffrey Archer, have a
penchant for telling true stories in a glamorous way.  The Wonderful Story
of Henry Sugar was a marvellous case in point - he told the story of a man
(Henry Sugar) who came across the journal of a doctor that described his
encounter with Imrat Khan, a man with X-ray vision.  The doctor sealed his
eyes shut with collodion and wrapped bandages around his head, whereupon
Khan walked out of the hospital, not hitting anyone, and cycled through
heavy traffic to get home.  Khan described to the doctor the study and
process he went through to gain this skill.  Henry Sugar followed the same
path and developed the skill to see through cards, making him a whiz at the
casino.  But he couldn't put the money to anything other than charitable
use, so he founded an orphanage in the Swiss Alps.  I thought this was a
charming story (when I was about twelve) but subsequently pieced together
some surprising evidence.  I found a book in my stepfather's library
publishing photographs of that very same cycle journey of Imrat Khan, whose
real name was Kuda Bux, and detailing the very same path he undertook.  I
also found out about the history of the Pestalozzi homes, possibly the
orphanage the Henry Sugar character founded.  I'm going to do some web
searches now, as this was all well before http, gopher, archie and the like.

But it could all be rubbish, what do I know anyway?

Guy

-----Original Message-----
From: bnmlist-admin@brightonnewmedia.org
[mailto:bnmlist-admin@brightonnewmedia.org]On Behalf Of Oliver Marshall
Sent: 10 June 2002 11:17
To: bnmlist@brightonnewmedia.org
Subject: RE: [BNM] [OT] pigeons

Poachers catch pheasants by putting a long hair in a raison, then
feeding it to them. Once the hair is lodged in the pheasants throat, it
just seems to become very dosile(never found out why), allowing the
poacher to nick it.

Another urban legend ?

-----Original Message-----
From: Tristan Roddis [mailto:tristan@roddis.org]
Sent: Monday, June 10, 2002 10:57 AM
To: bnmlist@brightonnewmedia.org
Subject: RE: [BNM] [OT] pigeons


On Fri, 7 Jun 2002, Mike Halsey wrote:

> > is there anything that pigeons absolutely
> > hate
>
> Yeah guns!  Failing that try wrapping some baking soda up in bread.
> Leave enough of it out and the birds'll explode internally, not being
> able to fart.

This sounded just *so* urban legend to me, so I thought I'd do some
research:

Exhibit A) a person who agrees with you:
http://www.3links.co.uk/stuff/explodeapigeon.shtml
(Note high scientific quality of 'facts' [WARNING: POPUP HELL])

Exhibit B) The closest I could find to a bird-killing recipe containing
CaCO3: "To Poison Sparrows," Farmers Guide, 18 January 1930, p. 9. ("The
exact recipe called for mixing one-eighth ounce of strychnine, one
eighth ounce of baking soda, three ounces of gloss starch, one and one
half teaspoons of boiling water with one quart of small wheat kernels or
cracked corn.  The person then dried the mixture--either in the sun or
in the oven. In the oven-drying method, care needed to be taken to
ensure that the doctored grain did not burn." - call me a skeptic, but I
would guess the strychnine is the *active* ingredient))

Exhibit C) A posting to a pigeon-fanciers mailing list where somebody
recommends baking soda as a *cure* for canker[1]:
http://www.interbug.com/pigeon/pml_archive/data/1998/1998-03-20-00-04-11
.txt
("Many years ago when the metronidazoles were not readily available for
use against canker we used Sodium Bicarbonate, the old carb soda and it
was reasonably effective and I hear it is back in use in some areas
today and may well be an alternative for those having difficulty finding
the more modern preparations.")

Exhibit X: if you're correct, an ironic advertisement from days gone by:
http://www.the-forum.com/ephemera/armham2.htm

Thus I submit to the jury, that given the strength of the supporting
evidence in exhibit C, and the flimsiness of the arguments in exhibit A,
that Mike is talking out of his non-exploding arse :)

-T.

[1] http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/scripts/htmlgen.exe?DOCUMENT_VM032

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tristan@roddis.org                              http://www.roddis.org
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