Read Online Why Do Pirates Love Parrots? by David Feldman - Free Book Online
Authors: David Feldman
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and extra virgin olive oil are prized not only for their low acidity and fine taste, but for the lack of processing used to extract them. Purveyors of fine olive oils tend to look down on solvent-extracted pomace oil, especially because pomace can legally be labeled “olive oil.” Betty Pustarfi, owner of Strictly Olive Oil in Pebble Beach, California, refers to pomace olive oil as “industry denigrated oil” because it is used to:
mix itself with the real stuff so it can be sold to consumers as premium, or most frequently, sold or used to be blended with the real stuff for use in the food service or production industry. Pomace olive oil is a lubricant, not a condiment, though it has most of the health values of the real stuff and is an accepted carrier for the real stuff as long as it is so labeled.
Submitted by Rene Triliad, via the Internet.
For more information about the making of olive oil, visit the Olive Oil Source Web site at: http://www.oliveoilsource.com/making_ olive_oil.htm.
Do Ostriches Swim?
W e all know that ostriches don’t really bury their heads in the sand. But will they dunk their bodies into the water? We vaguely remembered Charles Darwin writing about swimming ostriches, and we found the passage that we remembered in The Voyage of the Beagle. The scientist was traveling through northern Patagonia and discussed the South American ostriches he observed, but the description was a little more elusive than remembered:
at Bahia Bianca I have repeatedly seen three or four come down at low water to the extensive mud-banks which are then dry, for the sake, as the Gauchos say, of feeding on small fish…. It is not generally known that ostriches take to the water. Mr. King informs me that at the Bay of San Blas, and at Port Valdes in Patagonia, he saw these birds swimming several times from island to island. They ran into the water both when driven down a point, and likewise of their own accord when not frightened: the distance crossed was about two hundred yards. When swimming, very little of their bodies appear above water, their necks are extended a little forward, and their progress is slow.
So far, Darwin’s account is second hand, it would seem. But eventually, he recounts:
On two occasions I saw some ostriches swimming across the Santa Cruz river, where its course was about four hundred yards wide, and the stream rapid.
Case closed? When we conducted some further research, we were taken aback to read that ostriches are native only to the savannas and deserts of central and southern Africa. The “South American ostriches” that Darwin observed were not ostriches at all, but close relatives, the rhea (they belong to the same order as ostriches, Struthioniformes, but a different species). Rheas look similar to ostriches but with more water sources available to them than ostriches in the desert, might they have abilities in the water that ostriches don’t have?
The first person to respond to our query was Prof. Gerhard H. Verdoorn, director of BirdLife South Africa, who wrote:
I have no evidence from any literature that ostriches can swim! So the answer from my side is no! I guess that they will have to swim if their area becomes inundated—otherwise, no records of them swimming.
Next in our queue was an e-mail from Steve Warrington, of Ostrich.com:
Yes, ostriches can swim—in their natural desert surroundings they swim a lot—usually to cool and clean themselves.
A South African ostrich farmer, Tania Lategan from Cango Ostrich Farm outside of Oudtshoorn, South Africa, responded matter of factly, “Yes, an ostrich does swim to cool its body off.” We asked her if her ostriches swim on a regular basis, and she said: “Yes, if they do have access to water and it is hot, it will occur every day.”
But then another source, Pierre duP Fourie,
mix itself with the real stuff so it can be sold to consumers as premium, or most frequently, sold or used to be blended with the real stuff for use in the food service or production industry. Pomace olive oil is a lubricant, not a condiment, though it has most of the health values of the real stuff and is an accepted carrier for the real stuff as long as it is so labeled.
Submitted by Rene Triliad, via the Internet.
For more information about the making of olive oil, visit the Olive Oil Source Web site at: http://www.oliveoilsource.com/making_ olive_oil.htm.
Do Ostriches Swim?
W e all know that ostriches don’t really bury their heads in the sand. But will they dunk their bodies into the water? We vaguely remembered Charles Darwin writing about swimming ostriches, and we found the passage that we remembered in The Voyage of the Beagle. The scientist was traveling through northern Patagonia and discussed the South American ostriches he observed, but the description was a little more elusive than remembered:
at Bahia Bianca I have repeatedly seen three or four come down at low water to the extensive mud-banks which are then dry, for the sake, as the Gauchos say, of feeding on small fish…. It is not generally known that ostriches take to the water. Mr. King informs me that at the Bay of San Blas, and at Port Valdes in Patagonia, he saw these birds swimming several times from island to island. They ran into the water both when driven down a point, and likewise of their own accord when not frightened: the distance crossed was about two hundred yards. When swimming, very little of their bodies appear above water, their necks are extended a little forward, and their progress is slow.
So far, Darwin’s account is second hand, it would seem. But eventually, he recounts:
On two occasions I saw some ostriches swimming across the Santa Cruz river, where its course was about four hundred yards wide, and the stream rapid.
Case closed? When we conducted some further research, we were taken aback to read that ostriches are native only to the savannas and deserts of central and southern Africa. The “South American ostriches” that Darwin observed were not ostriches at all, but close relatives, the rhea (they belong to the same order as ostriches, Struthioniformes, but a different species). Rheas look similar to ostriches but with more water sources available to them than ostriches in the desert, might they have abilities in the water that ostriches don’t have?
The first person to respond to our query was Prof. Gerhard H. Verdoorn, director of BirdLife South Africa, who wrote:
I have no evidence from any literature that ostriches can swim! So the answer from my side is no! I guess that they will have to swim if their area becomes inundated—otherwise, no records of them swimming.
Next in our queue was an e-mail from Steve Warrington, of Ostrich.com:
Yes, ostriches can swim—in their natural desert surroundings they swim a lot—usually to cool and clean themselves.
A South African ostrich farmer, Tania Lategan from Cango Ostrich Farm outside of Oudtshoorn, South Africa, responded matter of factly, “Yes, an ostrich does swim to cool its body off.” We asked her if her ostriches swim on a regular basis, and she said: “Yes, if they do have access to water and it is hot, it will occur every day.”
But then another source, Pierre duP Fourie,
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