Have Your Say

There was a wealthy man in San Diego who was an avid bird collector. He had a huge collection of live birds. Every species on Earth was present in his collection.

One day, while browsing through a used book store in Oregon, he ran across a beautifully illustrated book on birds that he’d never seen before, so he bought it. And that evening, back in his hotel, he was reading through his new book when he was astonished to come across an entry for a bird he never heard of before, the world famous and very rare Rarey Bird. Amazed, he read the entry carefully, and learned that the Rarey Bird can only be found in the jungle on the West Coast of Africa.

The excited collector immediately checked out of his hotel, took a cab to Portland International Airport, and flew non-stop to New York. He booked a first class cabin on a ship to the west coast of Africa. On his arrival, he hired a safari and plunged deep into the jungle on the west coast of Africa. And there, deep in the jungle, he booked a room at the Explorers Club.

That evening, he was having a drink in the bar at the Explorers Club, when he happened to meet a friend who had been in the same biology class with him as an undergrad. They started chatting, his friend told him what he’d been up to, and the collector explained about his journey to find the Rarey Bird.

“I’m sorry to tell you this,” said his friend, “but your book is wrong. The Rarey Bird is not found in the jungles on the west coast of Africa. The Rarey Bird can only be found in the jungles on the east coast of Africa.”

The next morning, the collector checked out of the Explorers Club, took his safari, and set out into the jungle. Across the jungles of west Africa. Across the dense jungles of central Africa. And deep into the jungle of east Africa. There, he stopped off at a large trading post to seek directions from a local guide.

“I’m sorry to tell you this,” the guide said, “but your friend was misinformed. The Rarey Bird is not located in the jungles of east Africa. In fact, it cannot be found on the African continent at all. The Rarey Bird can only be found in the innermost part of Inner Mongolia.”

Undaunted, the collector assembled his safari, and set off through the jungles of East Africa, making his way to the coast. There, he booked passage on a steamship to China. Upon his arrival, he hired a caravan, and set off across the Chinese continent to Outer Mongolia, across the desert sands of Outer Mongolia to Inner Mongolia, across the burning sands of the deserts of Inner Mongolia, until he reached the innermost part of Inner Mongolia. And there, he was surprised to run into an archaeologist friend who had been in the same fraternity in college, who was in the innermost part of Inner Mongolia conducting a dig. The collector told his old friend what he was doing in Inner Mongolia.

“I’m sorry to tell you this,” the archaeologist friend said, “but the guide was very misinformed. Probably drunk. The Rarey Bird is not located in Inner Mongolia, or anywhere in Asia at all. The Rarey Bird can only be found in South America, in the part of the rainforest that lies deep in the deepest part of the Amazon River Valley.”

So the collector bid his old fraternity brother adieu, took his caravan back across the burning sands of the deserts of Inner Mongolia, back across the deserts of Outer Mongolia, back across the Chinese continent, to a seaport. There, he booked passage on the first available ship bound for South America. Immediately he arrived, he hired a safari, and they plunged into the jungle and down, down, down deep into the Amazon River Valley rainforest. And there, deep in the deepest part of the Amazon River Valley, he happened to encounter – an old Rarey Bird hunter.

The old Rarey Bird hunter informed him, that yes, indeed, the Rarey Bird is found deep in the deepest part of the Amazon River Valley rainforest. And he told him about the Rarey Bird. It does not fly – it runs. It runs through the rainforest alongside the Amazon River. Rarey Birds always run in the same places along the Amazon River, forming paths through the rainforest. These are known by the locals as “Rarey Bird paths.”

The Rarey Bird hunter explained the method for catching a Rarey Bird. He said that what you do is go out into the rainforest and find a fresh Rarey Bird path. Then you tie a string around a tree on one side of the path, and hide behind a tree on the opposite side of the path. When a Rarey Bird comes running down the path, you lift up the string, the Rarey Bird trips on the string, and you jump up and grab him.

Well, the collector went out into the rainforest and did all that, and he got his Rarey Bird!

But, man, that’s a long way to trip a Rarey!