Poonsters Post Reward for Vanished Ibis as Harlow Refutes Heron Fake After Night of Magic, Mystery

Late last night it was learned by the CRIMSON that the Lampoon has offered a reward of $200 for "return of the Ibis or information leading to its return.

Desperate efforts to save face left Bow Street's bird-men with little more than a handful of feathers late last night as ornithologist-footballer Richard Cresson Harlow exploded claims that the Ibis--which vanished from the Poonish vaults early Thursday--was still in the funnymen's possession.

"A heron is a heron is a heron is an auk," said the eminent expert on aves, and even birds ought to know it. This sort of cheap attempt at evading truth blackens the name of ornithology and must be condemned by all responsible and intelligent people, students and faculty alike."

A still-life published by the Evening Globe yesterday purported to show the "real" Ibis, posed with what the Lampsters called "the Crimson's prize duck" and a mysterious beer mug. But a brief investigation revealed the two birds to be outsiders put over on the gullible Globe.

Desperation was evidently a necessity for the birdmen after the mysterious materializations of their revered relic in Boston Thursday night. Despite elaborate attempts to snare their beast, the Poonsters got no more than a glimpse of Thresky during the evening.

The bird's initial appearance was at the Colonial Theatre, where, after a brief word of explanation to the baffled audience as to the nature of the Ibis and the Harvard Lampoon, Blackstone produced the mounted creature from an empty box. The magician's call for photographers indicated that the press had been tipped off to the event.

None of the audience saw the bird when it left the stage of the Colonial, so that several Poonmen who rushed up several minutes later were unable to trace their pet. Baffled, they returned to their lair to await further developments.

A few minutes later the comics received an enigimatic call from a person who identified himself only as "G.G. Toale," warning them that the Ibis had just been produced in the Opera House by Orson Welles, playing the part of the Japanese magician in his new Mercury production, "Around the World."

Hopping into their buff-colored roadster, the Ibisites whipped down to the Opera House to grab their namesake. Just as they arrived, one dozen strong, the bird appeared for an instant at the portals of the theatre. Rearing back at the night of the men who had been its master for 63 years, the feathered fowl fied back through the doors and vanished once again