Date: Fri, 9 Aug 2002 09:48:33 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Henry Armistead <74077.3176@COMPUSERVE.COM> Subject: Archaeopteryx redux: a Dorchester bestiary MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Paul O'Brien has issued within the confines of this august forum, in a rather uncollegial manner, what I am sure he considers to be a clarion call for an inquest into why the Dorchester County fall bird count, recently summarized in these pages, has failed to provide baseline data useful for assessing the status of Archaeopteryx in these climes. While I am, at 62, what some may dismiss as a dinosaur in my own right, this does not mean that I am accountable for locating every arbitrary taxon that has ever darkened Blackwater's door stoop from the Carboniferous Period to the Recent. However, in fact, au contraire, I welcome Paul's initiative withal as a chance to clear my name and am sure that I will be found innocent of any dereliction, without blemish, and as pure as the driven snow. While it is true that we have not been able to bear witness to the existence of other post-Jurassic taxa such as, to wit, Megatherium, Glyptodon, Ornitholestes, Archelon, and Phororachos, and, in fact, have also been unsuccessful in locating the evening flight of Gila Monsters (rumored to exist somewhere east of Shorter's Wharf Bridge), nevertheless the fact that these have not been seen does not prove they do not exist. Get it? A little patience, please. Let's not be obtuse about this. Remember, no less a authority than Professor Marcia Balestri has recently written (pers. comm.) that Archaeopteryx is "cast in stone"; ergo, one just has to find the, to put it mildly, ever lovin' stone. If these creatures do no longer exist then one is, unfortunately, reminded of the classic exchange between Eleanor of Aquitaine and Ramses VII (as recounted by Pliny the Elder) in which she lamented: "Oi vey, sic transit gloria mundi, baby." [that's "thus passes away the glory of the world" to the uninitiated] I am perfectly willing to concede that there is a jury but would argue that the jury is still out and when it gets to be in, am confidant of full exoneration, and not because of some contrived, deus ex machina confected technicality either. Who knows what will be found this year with the use of remote sensors, unremote censors, SR-71 intelligence-gathering spy plane upgrades, time-warp flame emission spectroscopy, and DNA fibrillator archival analysis, especially after all of the relevancy ratio matrix coordinates have been plotted? You have my word that you will hear, and soon after September 21. Until then - understand me - I will remain, mercifully you will say, completely silent on this matter, which has such profound personal associations.-Henry T. Armistead, 523 E. Durham St., Philadelphia, PA 19119. 215-248-4120. Any off-list replies to this off-topic and off-the-wall posting, especially those devoid of obscenities, please, to: harryarmistead@hotmail.com, in view of the fact that, in the aftermath that will surely ensue, I expect to be excoriated in every LISTSERV from Cranesville Bog to the old Roy Chapman Andrews Gobi Desert digs for Protoceratops. ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================