Okay, I wasn’t going to this. But seeing as how no less a luminary than recently-disgraced Werner Patel has weighed in on the subject, I figure the cosmos can entertain at least ONE more comment.

Much has been made of Michael Ignatieff’s quite funny suggestion that the Liberal Party adopt the Puffin as its official bird. The general reaction among Liberalphobes has been to pretend Mr. Ignatieff has as little sense of humour as they, and then reveal that the Puffin “conceals its excrement”.

Now, taking this suggestion at face value, I can’t for the life of me understand why concealing one’s excrement is a bad thing. I do it all the time, usually through the stratagem of flushing it away through the Mod Con available in many homes and offices since the early twentieth century, and I insist that friends and visitors do the same. Presumably those who find feces-concealing behaviour objectionable in the Puffin proudly leave their own feces on display: be warned, they are not welcome in my house.

Leaving that aside however, I must point out that very few of our brothers and sisters in the Animal Kingdom are completely devoid of habits that would seem at first blush to render them unsuitable as symbols. Here’s a quick whip through some of the better known emblematic animals.

The Bald Eagle : feeds on carcasses and carrion, scrounges garbage dumps. An inept hunter, has been known to drown while attempting to fish. Steals food from smaller raptors when it can. Cowardly: as noted disapprovingly by Benjamin Franklin, it is frequently frightened away from its nest by the much smaller kingbird. Communicates in squeeks and grunts (that dramatic “scream” you hear in movies is incorrect, dubbed in for effect).

The Unicorn: doesn’t exist. Sort of like the British “Empire”, I suppose.

The Lion: unbelievably lazy - they are inactive for 20 hrs. per day, and actually spend more time defecating than hunting. Hunting is done by the females: the males sit back and applaud. And if that doesn’t make you pity the females, bear in mind that the male has a penis lined with backward-pointing spikes. New males usually slaughter all the cubs in a pride they are taking over.

The Stag: No gall bladder. Responsible for approximately 150 deaths per year in motor vehicle collisions.

The Dragon: (see “Unicorn”, above.)

The Tiger: of all species, the most willing to shameless allow its image to be commercially exploited by cereal companies, gasoline vendors, children’s authors, Disney animators, sports franchises, and Tamil terrorists.

Honestly, doesn’t all that actually leave the fastidious and sanitary puffin looking pretty good?