On Wed, 12 Nov 1997, Amanda Bergman wrote:
How about a haggis? They're notoriously difficult to catch, due to their immense speed, but the baby females are ridiculously cute and twee...
Two questions for you: 1) what exactly is a haggis, and 2) what exactly does "twee" mean? Please pardon my American ignorance.
A haggis is a small furry scottish mammal. Very little is known about these elusive creatures, as they have a habit of running away and hiding underground whenever you come near. The only way to make them come out of their holes is to stand on top of the burrow, and repeatedly jump up and down. Perhaps the best source of information is a study done on them in 1976 by a biologist from Glasgow - let's call him Fergus (not to protect his anonymity or anything, but because that was his name). What he discovered was: "Each haggis has one long leg and one short leg. This is because the natural habitat of the haggis is the Scottish hills, and so they can run very quickly around the side of the hills to get away from predators without falling over. This is what makes them so hard for humans to capture. Males have the right leg longer, and females have the left leg longer, so when they run round the hills they meet each other face to face. Little is known of their mating habits, but it is thought that they each run backwards around the hill so that their backsides are facing each other. The species is becoming increasingly rare, partly due to hunting by humans, who consider the haggis a great delicacy (although this practice has now been outlawed everywhere in the world except Scotland, where bizarre rituals are attached to it involving strange musical instruments and men wearing dresses); and partly due to the fact that whenever there is a flood they all get washed down the hills, and because of their long leg they cannot climb back up to their burrows again. Some unscupulous people have been known to deliberately spray hoses down hillsides to wash all the haggis down to the bottom of the valley, and then collect them and sell them for food." Hope that answers your question. Stuart G ----------------------------------------------------------------------- . This message was brought to you by the Sinister mailing list. . To send to the list please mail "sinister@majordomo.net". . For subscribing, unsubscribing and other list information please see . http://www.majordomo.net/sinister . For questions about how the list works mail owner-sinister@majordomo.net . We're all happy bunnies humming happy bunny tunes. Aren't we? -----------------------------------------------------------------------