She developed her own systems for rapid acquisition of Talent, reminding herself how quickly the babies in the nursery learned to talk once they had begun.

WorldCom, built through rapid acquisitions, accumulated $41 billion in debts.

But annexation of territory was indeed slow, frustrating the Arabs then used to rapid acquisitions everywhere else.

But over the years, he oversaw a rise in sales to more than $13 billion through rapid acquisitions, product-line expansions and entries into foreign markets.

In this respect they are probably quite unlike the apes, who have not yet been subjected to evolutionary pressures for rapid acquisition of symbol systems.

However his rapid acquisition of Crown land may have served to change his tune.

"Under such conditions," he writes, "one might expect natural selection to favor rapid acquisition of a fully functional alarm call system."

They also praised Mr. Ginsburg's performance in building and managing the company through rapid acquisitions.

But analysts said that with WorldCom and other companies pursuing rapid acquisitions, this was exactly what happened.

Land values and rapid acquisitions have depleted bond money within about three years.