From: "Erica Ginter" <eginter at klgai.com>
To: "'WSFA members'" <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Urban studies; Ornithology
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 13:48:01 -0500
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

A little bit of ornithological trivia: the dodo was a species of pigeon.

Erica

-----Original Message-----
From: Keith F. Lynch [mailto:kfl at KeithLynch.net]
Sent: Monday, November 15, 2004 9:05 PM
To: WSFA members
Subject: [WSFA] Urban studies; Ornithology

"Robert MacIntosh" <macbuccfo at msn.com> wrote:

> They both share the same suburbs.

As far as I know, BWI airport is the only point on both city's transit
systems.  I don't consider it to really be in DC's suburbs, but since
it's on a Metrobus line, I guess it technically is, so there is one
point that is in both city's suburbs.  Which is useful for getting to
Balticon without using intercity transit.

I've heard that it's possible to get all the way to Boston entirely
on local transit, though it takes a while, and requires detailed
knowledge of numerous cities' bus and subway systems.  But there's
still no such city as BosWash, though it has appeared in various SF
novels.

> But a dodo bird...I mean, like what could be meant by that?
> (Douglas DC3 military variant, the C-47, was referred by its
> pilots as the goony bird, which is another name for the now
> extinct dodo bird.)

Nope.  The gooney bird (note the spelling) is a species of albatross,
and is very much alive, and capable of flight.  The dodo was an
unrelated flightless bird.

That's why I was puzzled about the sudden mention of the dodo.
I knew we had been using the gooney bird and the DC3 airplane.