VANISHMENT MADE EASY

    I wanted to find a list and some pictures of the birds who are said to stick their heads into holes in the ground and get to know more about them and learn why on earth they did such a queer thing.


           I ultimately determined that it is because they cannot make themselves disappear from the world simply by placing their hands in front of their faces and saying (silently or aloud): 


   “Where’s  [INSERT NAME]?,”


     as a small child might.


    If you don’t believe me about this, see Pliny the Elder (23-79 AD), Natural History, Book 10, Ch. 1 (i.e., "they imagine, when they have thrust their head and neck into a bush, that the whole of their body is concealed.")


      Great strategy, by the way.  Go ostrich.  Go emu.  Go lovely little sandpiper.