I was reminiscing recently about the great time I had on Mauritius a decade and a half ago, and whether I would want to include this island on my around the world trip. This is where the Dodo became extinct. Like how wrong we were in remembering the origin of Thanksgiving, my memory of how this bird got extinct apparently is faulty. I recall something like sailors hunted them down because they were so easy to catch, with good meat and useful feathers. More recent research indicates that the plump bird you see in drawings were those of well-fed pets. The wild dodo was leaner with a terrible tasting flesh, and difficult to find because they lived in impenetrable rainforests. What happened was that humans brought rats and domesticated animals. They killed this specie off.
Anyone remember where you last saw this bird? Turns out that the Dodo and and its remains disappeared several times. First they became extinct in 1662. Till today, even though at one time there were millions, there is nary a complete skeleton. English museums (Mauritius was a British colony) once competed for them. One wave of interest was stimulated by Lewis Carol in his Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (if you clicked on that, you saw a Dodo), where depicted is Alice shaking hands with one. While the real Dodo was only around three feet tall, remember that Alice had drunk a potion, making her smaller.
Then it occurred to me that I had seen another bird, the Great Auk, in the London British Museum, or maybe it was in the Moscow Darwin Museum. This bird, a bit shorter at 2'7" tall, too, is now extinct. Apparently the final two were killed by fishermen on an island close to Iceland in 1844. The latest report I saw indicated that the Great Auk was poached for their meat and feathers.
Neither of those birds was related to penguins, where the Emperor is around 4 feet tall. Remains of a 6'8" prehistoric penguin were recently found on Antarctica. And yes, penguins are consumed by explorers to supplement their diet. The Great Auk is close to the puffin (right).
Here is a recent clip filming some whale watchers saving a whale.
Song #30 is The William Tell Overture by Gioachino Rossini, which premiered in 1829 as the last of his 39 operas. No doubt the use as the theme for The Lone Ranger had a lot to do with this selection. Then there is the version by Spike Jones--aaand BEETLEBOMB--one of the greater novelty hits of all-time. The voice? ...Doodles Weaver in the style of the famous announcer Clem McCarthy. Sportscaster Billy Packer has called the third television time-out every second half at Indiana University basketball games as the greatest college timeout in the country.
Rossini is also noted for The Barber of Seville, featuring Figaro's Aria. This one is only 2hr 42min long. But back to William Tell, here is the four-hour opera. The Swiss legend:
William Tell arrived in town one day with his son and refused to salute the hat. Gessler was very upset, but instead of killing William Tell right there he challenged him to shoot an apple off his son’s head with one shot. If he succeeded, William Tell could remain free.
William Tell did shoot the apple off his son’s head with a
single arrow. But Gessler noticed that before he tried, Tell had taken
two arrows out of his quiver and asked why. William Tell answered,
“If I had missed, that second arrow would have been headed your
way.” Eventually, William Tell did kill Gessler, an act that started
a Swiss uprising that ultimately forced the Austrian invaders from
Switzerland.
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