Coconuts & Sausage Meat

FLORA & FAUNA

For several months now, Britain's normally demure blue tits have been on a rampage, swooping into respectable houses to tear wallpaper from the walls, attacking milk wagons to guzzle the milk, mangling books and belaboring laundry hung out to dry. This sudden delinquency has caused a flurry of speculation in the Times letters column and other British forums. Some blamed the tits' behavior on the lack of fats in austere Britain; others, like famed Dr. Marie (Married Love) Stopes, on the birds' "unsatisfied passion for coconuts."

(Like its U.S. cousin, the chickadee, Britain's tit has been taught to relish the meat of coconuts hung on a garden tree.) One Times reader, the bird-loving Countess of Cawdor, took a more ominous view of the matter. "Could it be," she mused darkly, "that it is we ourselves whose mad behavior has affected the tits?"

On the Tail. Elsewhere in the world last week, man's fey behavior was undoubtedly affecting other members of the animal kingdom. In Honolulu, pearl fishermen made plans to dope stubborn oysters into yielding up their precious pearls, by a drug said by its sponsor to resemble that used by obstetricians in inducing "twilight sleep." In Thaxted, Essex, a theatrical scene painter unveiled a gasoline-powered mechanical elephant that walked at 28 m.p.h., flapped its ears, carried eight passengers, a license plate and a taillight.

Meantime, in far-off Vienna, a flesh & blood pachyderm met a sensational end. For years the principal attraction of the Charlie Rebernigg Circus on the square behind Vienna's baroque Ehrlskirche had been a tough, smart, amiable elephant named Bubi. His broad, hospitable back was a favorite riding place for scores of Viennese tots. His sauntering shuffle was a familiar sight on the city's streets. Last fortnight, Bubi became suddenly irritable and turned on his trainer. All Vienna said that that was what came of keeping a male elephant virginal for 28 years. When Bubi was shot by order of Circus Owner Rebernigg, all Vienna mourned.

In the Stomach. Last week a progressive Viennese restaurateur named Rudolf Schiener bought Bubi's 3,500-lb. carcass. With a spirit and enterprise new to conservative old Vienna, he renamed his restaurant "The Elephant," and began experimenting with Bubi's remains in the kitchen. He wrote new menus featuring Afrikabraten (roast elephant), Bubi Schnitzel (elephant cutlet), Gulyas a la Bubi and Bubiwurst.

In front of his store a big sign asked: "Would you like to eat a piece of Bubi?" Viennese, who combine sentimentality and practicality, dried their tears and flocked in. "Half of Bubi," reported one Vienna paper at week's end, "has disappeared into the stomachs of the Viennese." A frequent diner at The Elephant was Circus Owner Rebernigg himself. A Viennese child had sent him five schillings (about 25-c-) to start a collection for another elephant--not to be eaten.

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