The Owl is registered, at our request

The Turing Registry today licensed the Rosen Owl as an ornithological replica, filing TR-10215, on a single condition: that it be identified as a replica whenever it is displayed in public.

A mechanical bird does not need a license. The house asked for one in February, after three years in which visitors who had been told at the door that the Owl was made continued to treat it as a living bird: one reported it to the state wildlife authorities, and a university ornithologist asked to fit it with a leg band. The house concluded that the Owl ought to have a public record that anyone could consult without taking the house’s word for anything, and that the Registry was the proper place to keep it.

The filing describes the Owl as the Registry would describe any system: what it is, who operates it, who answers for it and on what conditions it may be shown. The house proposed the condition itself, in the words the Registry has adopted, and will report on it at each renewal.

The plaque was fitted to the Owl’s stand this morning: a small enamel cartouche reading Replica, made by Tobiah Wren and fixed to the front of the stand where it cannot be covered. From this Thursday the attendant in the Salon will introduce the Owl at the start of every evening using the word replica, as the license requires, and the Owl’s certificate will be shown open beside it.

The Council of Associates has added a note to Article IX of the Articles, which holds that a piece mistaken for a living thing is finished only when it has been declared, to say that declaring a piece includes declaring it to a public register on which it is entered. It is the first change to the Articles since 1946.