[Ads-l] Drama Critic Motto: Leave no turn unstoned

Amy West medievalist at W-STS.COM
Tue Dec 5 11:56:35 UTC 2017


I am reminded of an item in the old hunting gallery at the former 
Higgins Armory Museum:

It was a crossbow with a sling/net, used for . . . throwing stones for 
hunting birds/small game, if I recall correctly. I can't recall the name 
for it . . .

---Amy West

On 12/5/17 12:00 AM, ADS-L automatic digest system wrote:
> Date:    Mon, 4 Dec 2017 16:08:00 +0000
> From:    "Baker, John"<JBAKER at STRADLEY.COM>
> Subject: Re: Drama Critic Motto: Leave no turn unstoned
>
> Earlier than this is an article in the (Zanesville, Ohio) Sunday Times-Signal, May 26, 1935 (Newspaper Archive).  Atypically, this is a reference to actual tern hunting.  It refers to an earlier article in the Louisiana Conservationist, the official organ of the Louisiana Department of Conservation, which I have not tried to track down.
>
> “The article describes the slaughter by professional plume hunters of tens of thousands of delicate least terns on such spots as Cobbs Island, Virginia, so that some woman’s hat might be more in fashion than that of her neighbor.  Terns, rather than flee at the first discharge of a gun, will circle and wheel over their fallen comrades, giving the hunter an ideal chance to kill great numbers of them before they fly beyond range.  The author, in an effort to picture the havoc wrought by plume hunters in colonies, uses the following appropriate humor pun:  The plume hunter left no stone unterned, so that no Tern went unstoned.””
>
>
> John Baker



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