The Mystery of the Dead Crows

The Mystery of the Dead Crows Along the Massachusetts Turnpike, workers recently found over 200 dead crows on a stretch of the highway and state health care authorities feared that the birds may have died from Avian Flu. So, the state's health department called in an MIT bird pathologist who was contracted at great expense to examine the dead birds. The pathologist determined that the crows definitely did not die from Avian Flu, much to the relief of the health care folks. However, during the pathologist's lengthy examination he noticed that a large percentage of the crows had different colors of paint on their beaks. So, the health department brought in another local expert. An expert on paint analysis who was also contracted at an additional expense to determine the origin of the paint. After a thorough examination of all of the paint samples he concluded that 98% of the paint was from trucks, with but only 2% being from cars, but they still didn't know why. Still perplexed, the Massachusetts health officials searched the country for a qualified Ornithological Behaviorist to discern why such a large percentage of the crows were struck and killed only by trucks. At an even greater expense, they finally settled on "an outsider", a highly qualified bird expert who lived in the Midwest - "fly-over country". They immediately flew him to Boston, paid his large retainer fee and put him up in Boston's finest hotel. After briefly examining the crows the next day the Midwestern Ornithological Behaviorist quickly announced his opinion. He concluded that since crows eat road kill they are certainly in harms way. For that reason, they always have a sentinel, a "look-out" crow in a nearby tree, to warn of approaching danger. After only 24 hours in Boston he concluded that although the highly intelligent crows had managed to learn the New England dialect, all that the "look-out's" were able to say was, "Cah!, Cah!" And since they never had been able to say "truck" the warning was useless. With that, he presented his bill and promptly flew back to the Midwest. ____________________________________________________________