Ibis Under Knife

As night waxed mercilessly into morning, a team of crack surgeons at Boston's renowned Hartz Mountain Bird Clinic worked feverishly to save a life. Head surgeon was Dr. Amos Goy, pioneer in the heart transplant and author of Your Telltale Heart. The life was that of the world-famous Ibis, found near death yesterday beneath a snow drift in Coolidge Corners, Vt.

It was Dr. Goy's 14th transplant and the first to be performed on an Ibis. To date, none of Dr. Goy's patients has survived, although optimism focused briefly on his daring attempt to transplant 312 canary hearts into a dying elephant. "For a while Bethesda seemed to be doing just fine," Dr. Goy said yesterday, "but the damn hearts wouldn't stay in phase."

Going into the operating room, the Ibis flashed his familiar victory sign to hundreds of well-wishers waiting outside.

Meanwhile, in Newton, family and friends of Mrs. Faith Deertag gathered for her funeral. Husband Axel told reporters she died happily. "When we learned she had only minutes to live," Deer-tag recalled, "Faith turned to me and said, 'My death will not have been in vain if only this precious heart of mine can beat for another living creature.'"