(no subject)

The most famous of them was a pigeon named Cher Ami - Dear Friend - who was as well known to schoolchildren of the 1920s and '30s as any human hero of World War I.

[blah blah blah pigeon heroics I am not typing all this up]

Cher Ami died within a year. But his legacy lives on: he is stuffed and mounted in Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.

Birdology by Sy Montgomery

...When did stuffing and mounting become a heroic legacy? Did I miss something? (Well. Stuffing and mounting the hero, at least.)

Also, do vending machines for crows sound like the weirdest yet most awesome way to make money ever? They'll put in coins for peanuts! Talk about a higher profit margin than vending to people. I'm sure this totally won't result in disaster as crows mob small children bringing their coin jars out into the open air to buy their long-saved-for toy.