What is a Haggis?
Electric Scotland's Classified Directory
What is a Haggis     ?
A haggis is a small animal native to     Scotland. Well when I say animal, actually it's a bird with vestigial wings - like the     ostrich. Because the habitat of the haggis in exclusively mountainous, and because it is     always found on the sides of Scottish mountains, it has evolved a rather strange gait. The     poor thing has only three legs, and each leg is a different length - the result of this is     that when hunting haggis, you must get them on to a flat plain - then they are very easy     to catch - they can only run round in circles.
After     catching your haggis, and dispatching it in time honoured fashion, it is cooked in boiling     water for a period of time, then served with tatties and neeps (and before you ask, that's     potatoes and turnips).
The haggis is considered a great delicacy in Scotland, and     as many of your compatriots will tell you, it tastes great - many visitors from the US     have been known to ask for second helpings of haggis!
The noise haggis make during the mating season gave rise to     that other great Scottish invention, the bagpipes.
Many other countries have tried to establish breeding     colonies of haggis, but to no avail - it's something about the air and water in Scotland,     which once the haggis is removed from that environment, they just pine away.
A little known fact about the haggis is its aquatic ability     - you would think that with three legs of differing lengths, the poor wee beastie wouldn't     be very good at swimming, but as some of the Scottish hillsides have rather spectacular     lakes on them, over the years, the haggis has learned to swim very well. When in water, it     uses its vestigial wings to propel itself forward, and this it can do at a very reasonable     speed.
Haggis are by nature very playful creatures, and when     swimming, very often swim in a group - a bit like ducks - where the mother will swim     ahead, and the youngsters follow in a line abreast. This is a very interesting phenomenon     to watch, as it looks something like this :
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The long neck of the mother keeping a watchful eye for     predators.
This does however confuse some people, who, not knowing     about the haggis, can confuse it with the other great indigenous Scottish inhabitant, the     Loch Ness Monster, or Nessie as she's affectionately known, who looks more like this :
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From a distance, I'm sure you'll agree, the tourist can     easily mistake a family of haggis out for their daily swim, as Nessie, this of course     gives rise to many more false sightings, but is inherently very good for the tourist     industry in Scotland.
The largest known recorded haggis (caught in 1893 by a     crofter at the base of Ben Lomond), weighed 25 tons.
In the water, haggis have been known to reach speeds of up     to 35 knots, and therfore coupled with their amazing agility in this environment, are     extremely difficult to catch, however, if the hunter can predict where the haggis will     land, a good tip is to wait in hiding on the shore, beacuse when they come out of the     water, they will inevitably run round in circles to dry themselves off.
This process, especially with the larger haggis, gives rise     to another phenomenon - circular indentations in the ground, and again, these have been     mistaken by tourists as the landing sites of UFOs.
I hope this clears up some of the misconceptions about the     Haggis, that rare and very beautiful beastie of the Scottish Highlands (and very tasty     too).
I have included here as much factual material as possible,     although there are many gaps in this subject, and some of the information has to be mere     speculation.
No-one has as yet been able to ascertain the sex of     captured Haggis, and partially because of this, scientists assume the haggis is     hermophroditic.
This may also be a product of evolution, and does explain     the logistic problems of bringing two haggis together - after all, sure footed though the     beast is, if two were to mate on a Scottish hillside, it is a long fall down, and a slip     at the wrong time may very well result in a reduction by two of the total haggis     population.
What is known about Haggis breeding is that, several days     prior to giving birth, the Haggis make a droning sound - very much like a beginner playing     the bagpipes for the first time - giving rise to the speculation that the bagpipes were     indeed invented in Scotland, simply to lure unsuspecting haggis into a trap. At the onset     of this noise, all other wildlife for a five mile radius can be seen exiting the area at     an extremely high rate of knots (wouldn't you if your neighbour had just started to play     the bagpipes?). The second purpose of the noise seems to be to attract other Haggis to the     scene, in order to lend help with the birth. This also gives rise to the assumption that     Haggis are tone deaf.
Haggis normally give birth to two or more young Haggis, or "wee yins", as they are called in Scotland, and from birth, their eyes are open,     and they are immediately able to run around in circles, just like their parent.
The wee yins are fiercely independant, and it is only a     matter of weeks before they leave the parent, and go off foraging for food on their own,     although it is perhaps a two or three year period before they are themselves mature enough     to give birth.
Most Haggis hunters will leave the wee yins, due simply to     their size, but when attacked by other predators, they are still able to emit the bagpipe     like sound, which again has the effect of very quickly clearing the surrounding area of     all predators, and attracting other Haggis to the scene. This results in a very low infant     mortality rate, with most wee yins actually making it to adulthood.
The lifespan of the Haggis is again an unknown quantity,     but from taggings done in the Victorian era, we know that some haggis live for well over     100 years.
Information provided by john@wilsonjo.demon.co.uk