How To Tell The Birds From The Flowers: A Manual of Flornithology for Beginners

By stoat on March 3, 2013.

From the bizarre discoveries file:

The Plover and the Clover can be told apart with ease,
By paying close attention to the habits of the Bees,
For en-to-molo-gists aver, the Bee can be in Clover,
While ety-molo-gists concur, there is no B in Plover.

and this is by Robert Wood, who did early work on the Theory of the Greenhouse.

Tags
fun

More like this

Can music convey meaning in the same way as language?
Recently I attended a concert featuring the premier of an up-and-coming composer's work. She gave a brief talk before her piece was played, during which she explained the complex symbology of her work. The musical notes weren't just noises; they were intended to convey a meaning above and beyond a…
Spread of Disease from Domestic to Wild Bees
A recent article in PLoS examines the possibility that disease is spreading from domestic to wild bees.Osmia ribifloris The conservation of insect pollinators is drawing attention because of reported declines in bee species and the 'ecosystem services' they provide. This issue has been brought to…
Bees are dying: who cares?
This is an article from the Christian Science Monitor: "What's happening to the bees?: Suddenly, the bees farmers and growers rely on are vanishing. Researchers are scrambling to find out why." Worth a read. Here's why we might care: While staple crops like wheat and corn are pollinated by wind…
What is killing the bees? It's the neonicotinoids, for sure.
Probably. I want to start out by welcoming all you bee experts who think it is not the neonicotinoids, or that it is not so simple, to make your case in the comments. There is a great deal of controversy over what is causing bees to die off. That controversy even impinges on how we describe the…

A1! Would click again.

There are a couple of versions of that book kicking around. My wife's parents have a pretty old one. When I was a kid we had what must have been a later edition, with more pages and more wonderful humor. Visiting the in-laws once I picked up their copy and was disappointed not to find some of my favorites.

Aha! I see, the *revised* version is here:

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/33346/33346-h/33346-h.htm

The additions are mostly not birds+flowers, though. For example, The Gnu and the Newt"