Word: birde
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...April 1958 a wave of excitement swept through Britain's museums and bird clubs. After a 42-year absence, a pair of ospreys was spotted at Loch Garten. Ornithologist George Waterston, Scottish representative of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, stood guard while the hen laid three eggs. The oölogist enemy was watching, too. At 2 a.m. one dark night, an egg snatcher climbed the tree. The defenders gave chase, but the oölogist escaped into a nearby forest, dropping and smashing two of the eggs as he fled...
...last week, little more than a month since the announcement, more than 10,000 pilgrims had viewed the untidy nest of sticks among the branches. Its occupants: a family of ospreys (fish hawks) with three fledglings-the first to be hatched in Britain since 1916. When the young birds flap off on their own in a week or two, they will mark a signal victory of British bird lovers over their ancient enemies, British egg collectors...
...bird ever had a rougher time from oölogists than the osprey. The great hawk is fascinating enough in life, with its striking black-and-white plumage, 5-ft. wing span and spectacular 100-ft. plunges into the water after fish. But the eggs are truly remarkable: as big as hens' eggs, and speckled in a kaleidoscope of purple, orange, red, lilac, buff, chestnut, violet and black. After the turn of the century, osprey eggs were so much in demand that a set of three brought up to $140-and the bird...
Ospreys normally return to the same mating place year after year. Would these return? As bird lovers waited, the first report came on April 18: the male was back; three days later, the female followed. The ornithologists were ready. In a campaign that rivals the efforts to protect North America's whooping crane, Waterston and his aides strung barbed wire around the base of the tree, planted the vicinity with booby traps, built an observation post with a covered approach. Relays of guards kept 24-hour watch, helped at night by a parabolic microphone so sensitive that they could...
...George Moore, director of New York's Roswell Park Memorial Institute* in Buffalo, biggest of the few cancer research units operated by states. Dr. Moore has studied abnormal cells, which might well be precancerous, in the blood of apparently healthy people of all ages. His thesis: every bird, beast and man produces some such cells at all times, but the body's defenses are usually strong enough to destroy them. That healthy people have a specific immunity against anybody else's cancer has been shown in dramatic tests by investigators from Manhattan's Sloan-Kettering Institute...