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Show r3v JIM RHODYpggJ! Now You Know The barn owl is often called "the feathered cat" because it is a great foe to mice . . . The black bear has the peculiar habit of treading in the same path, which becomes in time an easily recognizable trail, often leading to its destruction . . . Fires take a terrific toll in green and growing forests. This year forest for-est fires in the nation probably will burn over an area as large as the State of Indiana and destroy the potential lumber for at least eighty-six eighty-six thousand one-family houses. In the average year forest fires in the United States burn timberland at the rate of seventy thousand acres a day, destroying enough potential newsprint to publish every newspaper newspa-per in the country for a twelve month period . . . The young dolphin is about one-fourth the size of its parent when born . . . The polar bear is an exceedingly strong swimmer, having been known to cross a strait 40 miles wide . . . The goat-sucker, or nightjar, is a bird around which a number of old legends have been woven. The ancients believed It sucked goats at night, that the goats immediately "dried up" and lost their sight . . . The narwhal is called the sea unicorn because of the long, spiral and tapered tuck that grows from its upper jaw. This is sometimes as long as ten feet. Its purpose has never been determined. deter-mined. Ironically, the tusk is often fashioned into a harpoon used in the hunting of these sea animals . . . In laying in its supply of food for the winter, the chipping squirrel, or hackee, always carries four nuts in the pouches of its jaws on each journey to its storehouse . . . The yak's white bushy tail is in great demand for various ornamental purposes. Mounted in a silver handle it is used as a fly-flapper in India and is called a chowrie ... In Australia Aus-tralia the bald eagle will follow white men hunting kangaroos, hoping for the refuse from the kill. It will pay no attention to the black natives hunting the same animal, as it knows the black native will make personal use of all portions of the prey . . . The cuckoo, which places its eggs in the nests of other and smaller birds, does this through necessity. The largest of the in-sectivrous in-sectivrous birds, it requires a large quantity of food, keeping it constantly con-stantly on the search. If it sat on its eggs, it could not obtain this food; if it left its eggs, they would become chilled . . . Dispersion of young spiders is accomplished by "ballooning." The young spiders throw out streams of silk and rise on warm currents of ascending air. They rise as high as 14,000 feet or better and travel hundreds and even thousands of miles . . . Although the lion is called the "King of the Beasts" he is not the Jargest, strongest or even the bravest member mem-ber of the animal world . . . The number of rattles on the end of a rattlesnake's tail does not indicate the age of the snake as is commonly believed. A new rattle is formed each time the snake sheds its skin. AAA Strange Predators There are predators to which most of us give little thought. The fire ant is one such creature that destroys de-stroys many young quail. As the eggs hatch these ants invade the shell and eat the young birds. In spite of the parent bird's best efforts they may kill an entire hatch. Domestic Do-mestic chickens have been known to kill young quail, and wild turkeys to destroy quail nests. We don't want to imply that this is a serious form of predation, but it poses a nice, if theoretical, question. Should we control wild turkeys in order to protect quail? Not so long ago Mr. Handley sent us a paper written by Dr. C. H. D. Clarke, a Canadian authority on pheasants. The following passage was underlined. "Studies show that the predator problem is a cover problem with pheasants. Where a pheasant has good escape cover, it does not matter, within normal limits, lim-its, how numerous its enemies are. Where it has no escape cover, it docs not matter how scarce they are". Opposite this statement Mr. Handley had written, "Alro bob-whites, bob-whites, rabbits, and grouse." Leopold tells of a covey of quail that for three successive days lost a member to a Cooper's hawk. With such good pickings it was natural for the hawk to stick around, but It did him no further good. The birds by then had perfected their escape tactics and in a few days the hawk moved on to other hunting grounds. No doubt he would have gotten every bird in the covey if the quail had not had good cover in which to take refuge. AAA Crawfish Bait At times crawfish are excellent bait for both kinds of bass, although al-though it is for small mouths that they excel. They are good in both lakes and streams. For still fishing they should be hooked under the corset, but if they are to be kept moving they should be hooked through the tail because they swim backwards. A No. 2 hook Is about right. Since crawfish like rocky bottoms, they are best fished there. |