| Dr Jack's cartoon
of 29 May 1997, showing a scientist and a satirist fencing with wet fish, omitted for reasons of copyright |
When you tread on the tail of a puff-adder, the reaction is swift, mindless and painful. In this respect, satirists are little different from adders, as Jim Cambray discovered when he inadvertently tramped on the tail of Robert Kirby. For someone whose main contribution to zoology was the public dissection of Eight Beasts and Eight Birds (now mostly extinct), Robert had a lot to say about Jim's scientific qualifications, accusing him of presenting "fatuous adjudications" with "gloriously diligent hysteria". Jim took the only revenge possible, carefully pickling the letter in formalin as a type specimen of the genre, and presenting it at an international conference in Italy.
For Jim Cambray's reasoned criticism of the introduction of alien fish to South African rivers, and Robert Kirby's extraordinary response, search for Kirby or Cambray on http://www.sangonet.org.za (Mail and Guardian Letters, 1997-5-23 and 1997-6-6) and visit http://www.ru.ac.za/albany-museum/m&g.html.
See also African Wildlife 51 (5), September/October 1997.