Three ducks

Wild Oysters

Here’s Wild Oysters by Charley Bowers. Originally there was a better YouTube copy embedded at the top of the post, but it ain’t there no more. If anyone finds a sharper version online, give a holler!

See also Believe it or Don’t at Europa Film Treasures for your poultry portion du jour, and more besides.

Added, thanks to Paul, Pete Roleum and His Cousins from 1939, animation by Mr Bowers, direction by Joseph Losey. This was a promotional film about the oil industry made for the New York World’s Fair. It’s a little hard to understand in places because when it was originally shown, a live actor in the theatre would engage the animated figure in conversation, and the live part of the dialogue is now missing.

Wayfaring Dodo

Your poultry link of the day: Flesh is Grass on beak trimming.

As nature intended

A drawing from the THES,  May 19 1995, for a feature on Neo-Darwinism.

Clucks or eggs?

A drawing of mine from the Times Higher Education Supplement, March 15 1996, illustrating a review of two books, The Bell Curve Wars: Race, Intelligence, and the Future of America, edited by Steven Fraser, and The Bell Curve Debate: History, Documents, Opinions, edited by Russell Jacoby and Naomi Glauberman. The article was by Robert Audley and Richard Rawles, and you can see the whole page here.

An earlier drawing on this theme, also for the THES, can be found here.

Automated poultry cutaway

The ins and outs are explained in this illustration by E. Benyaminson for Hello, I’m Robot! by Stanislav Zigunenko (Russia, 1989), found on A Journey Round My Skull.

More on industrialised poultry farming here.

Easter holidays

We’re off tomorrow. A good thing, as a weary sadness crept upon me today. We’ll miss the seder with the in-laws, but I’ve had enough gruesome talk from Peggy of all she’s heard at school about the crucifixion, and I’ll happily do without the killing of the first born on top. She’s only just turned five!

Peggy earlier today: “Papa, why did God let Jesus die on the cross?”

Me: “I don’t know, it’s just a story.”

Her big brother Bo, eight years old now: “You know Peggy, not everyone believes it, and one who doesn’t is that fellow there!”

The image is from a baby book published by Sandvik in 2007.

Elsewhere: Getting away from people, R. Crumb’s forest sketches at Uncle Eddie’s Theory Corner.

Is that the time?

. . . off to bed then. One of these years I ought to reset the clock on this blog to London time.

The image is from a baby book published by Sandvik in 2007.

Investment advice

Above, a nest-egg, or more simply, an egg.

Below, here it is again with all the other eggs, in one basket. The mistake is an obvious one, and it's not even a very sturdy looking basket.

Counting chicks would certainly be most premature in these circumstances. But should you be lucky enough to be see your investment mature, then simply counting will not be enough to ascertain the true value of your capital gain. Below is a device that you may find helpful.

All images from The Henwife by the Hon. Mrs. Arbuthnott, published by Thomas C. Jack, 45 Ludgate Hill, London, in the year 1887.