Hi all, Just wanted to relate a story about Abercrombie and Fitch's recent adventures. I took my Intro to Ecology class on a spring wildflower sampling field trip today to a small woodlot near campus. My students are mostly wildlife science and agriculture/natural resources, and don't usually get enthusiastic about anything. However, this time I decided to take the ferrets along to get some fresh air and some outdoor digging time, and the two of them managed to charm all sixty of my students. They were soon making the rounds from group to group, pulling on the measuring tapes and flagging and burrowing in the leaves in the sample plots. One group of my male students (who have made their reputation as tobacco-chewing complainers and skeptics) adopted Abercrombie, but decided that his name was too "feminine" and started calling him "Abe" instead. We also ran into a group of around 25 four-year olds and their teachers in the woods, and the ferrets spent about 30 minutes being fawned over by the children. The two of them are now utterly exhausted from the day of attention and adventure, and after devouring an entire banana have curled up to sleep in the opened drawers of my file cabinet in my office. Sometimes I wish I had a life like that!!! :) Marcy [Posted in FML issue 1165]