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The follwing is quoted in its entirety from FORTEAN TIMES, No. 122, June, 1999, page seven, right hand column, second item under "Sidelines":
To Protect and Serve: The inscription on the metal bands used to tag migratory birds in the USA has been changed.The bands used to bear the address of the Washington Biological Survey, abbreviated to 'Wash.Biol.Surv." That was until the agency received a letter from a camper in Arkansas: "Dear Sirs, While camping last week I shot one of your birds. I think it was a crow. I followed the cooking instructions on the leg tag and I want to tell you it was horrible." The bands are now marked: "Fish and Wildlife Service." New Scientist, 10 Oct 1998.
This isn't a "news break" but a joke and a very old one at that. I first heard it as a joke around 1950 and my parents had heard it years before I did. (A much later version claims that "Biol" was mis-spelled "Boil" on one batch of the leg tags and thus the problem.)
Here is the letter as I remember it (reconstructed after well over 50 years): "I shot yore bird as it flew over my farm and I cooked it jist lak you said. I washed it and bioled it and then I surved it. And it tasted turrible."
Please note that there never seems to have been any such agency as the "Washington Biology Survey." Entering the name of this supposed agency into Google brings up endless versions of the joke itself. Besides, governmental agencies headquartered in Washington, D. C., tend to be named "United States" or "Federal" rather than after the name of the city. I'm sure much the same thing holds true for British national agencies headquarted in London.
P. S. However, I regret to tell you that the Great State of Arkansas has declared war on Britain over the above NEW SCIENTIST/FT insult. But erven so there's no immediate cause for alarm. As my Arkansas correspondent informs me: "Hostilities can't commence until the guy we sent up there to Washington tracks down that darned elusive Brytush Embassy and delivers the papers."
To Protect and Serve: The inscription on the metal bands used to tag migratory birds in the USA has been changed.The bands used to bear the address of the Washington Biological Survey, abbreviated to 'Wash.Biol.Surv." That was until the agency received a letter from a camper in Arkansas: "Dear Sirs, While camping last week I shot one of your birds. I think it was a crow. I followed the cooking instructions on the leg tag and I want to tell you it was horrible." The bands are now marked: "Fish and Wildlife Service." New Scientist, 10 Oct 1998.
This isn't a "news break" but a joke and a very old one at that. I first heard it as a joke around 1950 and my parents had heard it years before I did. (A much later version claims that "Biol" was mis-spelled "Boil" on one batch of the leg tags and thus the problem.)
Here is the letter as I remember it (reconstructed after well over 50 years): "I shot yore bird as it flew over my farm and I cooked it jist lak you said. I washed it and bioled it and then I surved it. And it tasted turrible."
Please note that there never seems to have been any such agency as the "Washington Biology Survey." Entering the name of this supposed agency into Google brings up endless versions of the joke itself. Besides, governmental agencies headquartered in Washington, D. C., tend to be named "United States" or "Federal" rather than after the name of the city. I'm sure much the same thing holds true for British national agencies headquarted in London.
P. S. However, I regret to tell you that the Great State of Arkansas has declared war on Britain over the above NEW SCIENTIST/FT insult. But erven so there's no immediate cause for alarm. As my Arkansas correspondent informs me: "Hostilities can't commence until the guy we sent up there to Washington tracks down that darned elusive Brytush Embassy and delivers the papers."
