04.21.13 — Life List — the Acrostic

 
 
Sunday, April 21, 2013
 
ACROSTIC, Puzzle by Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon
Edited by Will Shortz

This Sunday’s acrostic springs from nature as a reminder of Earth Day. The quotation is from Life List: A Woman’s Quest for the World’s Most Amazing Birds by Olivia Gentile
 
Life List, was published in April 2009 by Bloomsbury USA and tells the true story of Phoebe Snetsinger, a housewife and cancer survivor from St. Louis who saw more bird species than anyone in history — an account of a woman’s obsession with bird-watching, its effect on her relationships with her husband and her four children, and the horrifying mishaps that she survived on each continent—until the last mishap. ~ Wikipedia
 
The quotation: THE CLOSER YOU GET TO THE EQUATOR, THE BIRDIER IT GETS: … TINY … PANAMA, … JUST NORTH OF THE EQUATOR, HAS ALMOST A THOUSAND BIRD SPECIES, MORE THAN HAVE BEEN RECORDED IN ALL OF NORTH AMERICA; PERU … HAS A WHOPPING EIGHTEEN HUNDRED.
 
The author’s name and the title of the work: OLIVIA GENTILE, LIFE LIST

The defined words:

A. Group to which grasshoppers and crickets belong, ORTHOPTERA
B. Created an empty nest, say (2 wds.), LEFT HOME
C. Provide a good environment for developing, INCUBATE
D. Went the way of the passenger pigeon, VANISHED
E. High-albedo Antarctic feature (2 wds.), ICE SHEET
F. New Agey; Ayn Rand or Ronald Reagan, by birth, AQUARIAN
G. Forest in full foliage, GREENWOOD
H. Spanish grass sometimes woven into sandals, ESPARTO
I. Whippoorwill, for one, NIGHTJAR
J. Femur, THIGHBONE
K. Featherbrain, dodo, IGNORAMUS
L. Business traveler’s carry-on, LAPTOP
M. Sky father’s counterpart (2 wds.), EARTH MOTHER
N. Where fluffing and folding may be observed, LAUDERETTE
O. Line connecting points equal in temperature, ISOTHERM
P. Had a notion of; took a shine to, FANCIED
Q. Fungus hosted by a pant, ENDOPHYTE
R. Ammo banned for waterfowl hunting since 1991 (2 wds.), LEAD SHOT
S. Extinct marine giant, ICHTHYOSAUR
T. Use up heedlessly, SQUANDER
U. Easy riders down a stream; yams, cassavas etc, TUBERS

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The unedited quotation: By the late 1950s, a few birders were even going abroad, mainly to the tropics. The closer you get to the equator, the birdier it gets: the tiny country of Panama, which is just north of the equator, has almost a thousand bird species, more than have been recorded in all of North America; Peru, which is just south of the equator has a whopping eighteen hundred. ~ Life List: A Woman’s Quest for the World’s Most Amazing Birds by Olivia Gentile

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