I came across some olds papers including my answer in a riddle contest by Omni Magazine back in 1980, and I thought some of you might want to give this a try. Back then the riddle was over a century old and was still not known to be solved yet; I solved it along with 20 other contestants. I'll post the answer in a few days. Here is the riddle:

I'm the loudest of voices in orchestra heard
But yet in an orchestra never was seen;
I'm a bird of gay plumage, but less like a bird
Nothing in Nature ever has been.
Touching earth I expire, in water I die,
In earth I lose breath. I can swim, I can fly.
Darkness destroys me and light is my death;
I can't keep alive without stopping my breath.
If my name can't be guessed by a boy or a man,
By a girl or a woman it certainly can.

Edit to add this note: Slapshot has asked, in the very next reply, if he should post his answer and possibly spoil the fun for others. That's fine, but I wanted to add this warning here that if you want to try solving the riddle yourself without inadvertently seeing the answer somewhere in this thread, you are welcome to email me directly at billvelek at alltel.net with the subject line "riddle", and I'll let you know if you are correct or not. That way you can still give it another try if you're wrong. Or you can post your answers here in this thread and I'll tell you if you're wrong without posting the answer. That way we can give folks some time to work on this.

Edit #2: Don't cheat by doing a google search or you'll find my answer.

Bill Velek