The Black-necked Swanfrom the Pampas and Places of Penguins

Abstract

Due to the Editor's omission of the opening paragraph of Mr. Lindholm's article on Redheads (Aythya americana), in the previous issue of '' Watchbird," the following persons were not clearly identified: Monica Fehse, Fort Worth Zoo's Registrar, regularly issues the highly detailed inventory of the bird collection, referred to in the first sentence. Elizabeth Glassco, Assistant Curator of Birds at Forth Worth since December 1991, was, until then, Lead Keeper of Birds at the National Zoological Park, Washington, D.C. Brad Hazelton, Keeper II, Birds, at Forth Worth, is responsible for most of the Zoo's extensive collection of waterfowl. Lisa Weedn, Keeper I, Birds, assisted Mr. Hazelton with handrearing last season. For many people, English stately homes and their attendant grounds might bring to mind sedate images of high teas, croquet matches, ballroom dances, and drawing room conversations, punctuated by the occasional fox hunt. At Knowsley Hall, near
Liverpool, however, from 1806 to 1851, activities of a less orthodox nature were frequent. Mud balls from the Gambia arrived in 1843, and, placed in tanks in the
Knowsley hot houses, duly produced the first Mrican Lungfish seen alive in
England (Woolfall, 1990). That same year a living boa constrictor was sent
to the London Zoo, and a dead Spiney Soft-shelled Turtle (which had lived at Knowsley for at least seven years) to the British Museum (Ibid, 1990). Queen Victoria sent Angora Goats to Knowsley Hall from Buckingham Palace (Ibid., 1990). While living there in the 1830s, painting their grandfather's squirrels, guans, genets and other creatures, young Edward Lear entertained the children at Knowsley with scores of illustrated limericks, poems, and stories concerning the doings of owls...

PDF