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Show Page 8 - S. L. Neighborhood NewsAdvertiser Riddle: What has four wheels and flies? Neighborhood For answer color 2-re- d, 4-blu-e. ck Fun Corner How many birds are there? Nobody has actual iy counted every bird, of course, but people who study wild birds believe there are about one hundred billion of them in the whole world. Right now here the United States and Canada there are around twelve or fifteen billion. That includes the sea gulls in and other water birds. This tremendous feathered crowd is so big that it amounts to about fifty birds for every man, woman and child on the entire earth. It is made up of between eight and nine thousand distinct kinds of birds plus a large number of related kinds which are only slightly different. The biggest bird of all sometimes stands eight feet high and weighs three hundred pounds. That is the ostrich, of course. It really comes from Africa, but you can see it in our zoos. And the smallest bird is believed to be the tiny bee hummingbird of Cuba. It only two inches long and weighs a good deal less than the letter on which you stick an eight-cen- t is stamp. It's fun to keep a notebook in which you put down the number of birds you see each time you go out. If a robin or any other bird were to jump into deep water, its feathers would be soaked.You have seen what happen when one splatters around in a bird bath. But a duck's feathers are perfectly waterproofed with natural oil. In fact, if you hold one dry-lan- d of them under cold water for half a an hour it will come out as dry as Do you ever wonder what speed a bird is flying when it flies past you like an arrow shot from a bow? If it is one of the smaller kinds, such as a sparrow or a woodpecker, it is probably traveling at fifteen to twenty-fiv- e miles per hour. Some of the big, strong birds, especially ducks and geese, can cruise along steadily at a speed without forty or fifty-mileven getting winded. Peregrines, a small bird, have been clocked in power dives at 180 miles per hour. Not all birds speed records are made in the air. A cock pheasant e can run so fast that you'd really have to hurry to keep up with him. The road runner found southwest desert country zV YMCACamp Roger ever. in is our even speedier. But the champion runner among birds is the ostrich. By taking steps more than twenty feet long, it can trot at fifty miles an hour. Hummingbird wings often make fifty or sixty strokes a second, and sometimes as many as two hundred. The hummingbird can even fly backwards at speeds upto fifty miles an hour. If you want something fun to do this summer, take a trip to Tracy Avairy in Liberty Park and see the many different kinds of birds on display there. The Avairy is open every day and is the home ' for birds from all over the world. located 65 miles east of Salt Lake City in the high invigorating air of the Unita Mountains. The camp offers two one week periods for girls and two one week camping periods for boys, plus five one week camping periods for both boys and girls, Camp Roger ages 8 through 1 is 5 years. At Camp Roger you find a wide range of activities: horse-back DID YOU KNOW? The longest recorded fingernails were reported from Shanghai in 1910, in the case of a Chinese priest who took 27 years to achieve nails up to 22 and two third inches in length. Probably the longest nails now grown are those of Ramesh Sharma of Delhi, India, whose nails on his left hand now are 52 and a half inches after 10 years of growth. The longest recorded length for hair was that of Swami Pandarasannadhi of India. His hair was reported in 1949 to be feet in length. twenty-si- x Vivian "Sailor Joe" Simmons, a Canadian tattoo artist, had 4,831 tattoos on his body. He died in Toronto on December 22, 1965 at the age of 77. riding, hiking, campfires, fishing, exploring and many others. Camp offers a new world of adventure and experience, helps youngsters learn to live with others, develops and appreciation for the out-door- develops self-relianc- e. For more information about any of the summer programs and activities at the YMCA, call or stop by at 737 East Second South. 322-129- 3 |