Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id QAA02692 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sat, 9 Feb 2002 16:07:34 GMT Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2002 11:02:06 -0500 Subject: Re: Words and memes Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed From: "Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.20020209203845.006c3c0c@pophost.nor.com.au> Message-Id: <5DB271F4-1D76-11D6-83E5-003065B9A95A@harvard.edu> X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.480) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On Saturday, February 9, 2002, at 04:38 , Jeremy Bradley wrote:
> Thankx for that bit of trivia Wade. I always thought that they did. It
> must
> be one of those non-urban myths.
The farmyards and the backyards and hunter's realms are moist with
myths, of course, just as our cities are.
This, from the Straight Dope at
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mostrich.html-
"There are two theories about how this rumor got started. According to
the World Wide Fund for Nature, the ostrich lowers its head toward the
ground in reaction to danger, especially when it's sitting on a nest
(the female keeps the eggs warm during the day and the male sits on the
eggs at night.). "To escape detection, chicks as well as adults may lie
on the ground with neck outstretched," the Encyclopedia Britannica adds.
Supposedly the ostrich hopes its enemy will mistake it for a termite
mound or low bush when its head is lowered. Seeing as an ostrich is the
world's largest bird weighing as much as 400 pounds, I doubt they fool
anyone but the blindest hyena.
Male ostriches use their bills to dig shallow nests in the sand and move
their eggs around. From a distance, this could look like the ostrich's
head is disappearing in the sand. That's the other theory."
And I wish I had some respect for the boundless trivia I manage to
maintain, but then, I hear someone else with even a larger, more arcane,
headful of ancillaries, and I'm happy, for the moment.
- Wade
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Feb 09 2002 - 16:45:50 GMT