Sorry for breaking the silence but the bribes ran out. Actually, I've been taking it easy to rest up for the next month-o-fun. We have postponed the surgery on Sandy for a couple of weeks because of a sudden vaginal infection. She is on antibiotics for the next ten days, and if all cleared up, then we will cut. The infection came on in a matter of hours, or so it seems, but was caught very early and shouldn't be a problem. The poor little sweetie now recognizes the vet office and vet, and today started dooking around, then wardanced after the temperature thingie (YOU know). For those who care, we moved Elizabeth into her own place today. I wanted to give her a ferret as a housewarming gift, but that will have to wait for a while; like after she coughs up the $500 pet deposit. I gave her one of my favorite bonsai trees instead; a 20-year-old California live oak. If she kills it, she will die--she is already on my death list because of her big mouth regarding peppers so I wouldn't care much. And Bill Killian's engimatic comments yesterday left me wondering if something isn't going on behind the scenes. You will pay, Lizardbreath! I leave Saturday for the month-o-fun and people are so glad I'll be off the FML they are throwing a party that I plan on crashing. But you all forget I bought a 56K modem and can still blaze my way to the list with a single phonecall. Har Har Har. Better send in the bribes again. Q: (Private Post) "You once mentioned one of the reasons you didn't think ferrets were domesticated in Egypt was because of a lack of fossils. Are there any ferret fossils anywhere else?" A: Sure; but don't let my graying hair fool you. I'm not as desiccated as I look, and if you say it again, I'll tell my mummy. Ferret remains are very limited; most confirmed ferret remains are of a recent nature; last century or so. There are a couple older that have been discribed in print, and I am aware of several more that are yet to be discribed. But knowing the remains are a ferret or not really doesn't matter, because since ferrets are domesticated polecats, having polecat remains demonstrates the potiential for domestication. In other words, ferrets could have been domesticated anywhere you can find polecat remains, but not where there are no such remains. While ferret remains older than a century or so are rare, polecat remains have been found in quantity. They were found in Britain more than a century ago during the great cave explorations of the mid-1800s, described by such greats as Owens, Lubbock, Lyell and Flower. Several thousands-of-year-old polecats and black-footed ferrets mummies have been found in Alaska and Northwest Canada. One mummy of a BFF is so well preserved, it looks like a sleeping fert; well, maybe one that has lost its hair and is almost 40,000-years-old. The bottom line is, the remains of polecats (and BFFs) are found through out the USA/Canada, Northern Eurasia, and Northern Europe down towards the Mediterranean. Kirten reported polecat remains in mountain caves in the Lebaneese-Palestine area, but did not describe them in published works. None have been found in Egypt, the Sinai, Israel, nor the surrounding areas. None. This begs the question: how can you domesticate something that isn't found in your area? Fossils of wild and domesticated forms of cats, dogs, horse, sheep, goats, cows, etc., are found in the areas where they were domesticated; why not in Egypt? I think the "African Ferret" theory has about as much reality to it as me being good-looking. Yep. Sure. Yep. Bob C and the 17 Playful Polywoggers [Posted in FML issue 1986]