Excellent condition or better.

46 pages

June 1978 Volume 12 Number 6

4 Birds With Red Balloons

9 Bugs, Bugs, Bugs-Poems

10 Hang On, Kolo

13 Dinosaurs to Eat

14 Sassafras, the Everything Tree

16 Dear Ranger Rick

18 Scorpion of the Sea

20 Little Nan

27 Ranger Rick & His Friends

31 Silly Saguaros

33 Too Hot, Too Cold, Just Right

36 Hollow Oak Book Nook

37 Dinosaur Dig

40 Ollie Otter's Fun Pages

42 Wise Old Owl

Cover credits: Luna moth caterpillar and

Annual Cicada by James H. Robinson:

Page 2-by George H. Harrison/Grant Heilman

----------- 2 -----------

by Ruth Aronson

Imagine soaring high above

an island far out at sea. Down

below something red shimmers.

As you fly lower, the land appears

dotted with bright red balloons.

Suddenly they start to vibrate

and glisten with the sun shining

on them. Behind each balloon

sits a large dark bird with long

wings and a sharply hooked

beak. Who are these strange

birds and why are they hiding

behind big red balloons?

These birds are frigate birds,

and they're not hiding. The

balloons are throat sacs which

the males can blow up to attract

attention. It is the start of the

breeding season, and male

frigate birds have gathered to

begin a show. The show will lure

the females down from the sky.

Soaring high above the island,

a female may appear as only

speck in the sky. But frigate

birds have sharp eyes, and the

males soon recognize her white

markings. One female frigate

bird is enough to start the show.

When the males spot her they

stretch their wings and point

their balloons up to the sky. Each

makes a loud trumpet sound.

Sunlight sparkles off the shiny

undersides of their wings as

the males shake their bodies

with excitement.

Do all the balloons look the

same to the female? Maybe

from the sky they do. But, when

she gets close, she finds many

small differences among the

male frigate birds. Please turn the page

----------- 3 -----------

by Helen Evetts

When Kolo, the koala baby, was born he

was barely three-quarters-inch (less than

2 cm) long. He weighed about as much as a

newborn mouse. He was just strong enough

to use his tiny, curved claws to haul himself

into his mother's warm pouch. And there he

stayed, suckling, sleeping and growing.

One day, nearly six months after he was

born, Kolo stuck his head out of the pouch.

He got an upside-down view of a leafy

world. Unlike a kangaroo's pouch, a koala's

opens at the bottom. Kolo didn't see his

world rightside up until he crawled out of

the pouch and onto his mother's back.

There he hung on until he was about a

year old.

Kolo looked exactly like his mother.

They both had sturdy legs, thick woolly

coats, fringed ears and large, shiny-black

noses. They had no tails. In Australia where

Koalas live, they are sometimes called

"native bears." They're not bears at all,

though; they're related to kangaroos.

Like all koalas, Kolo and his mother

lived in eucalyptus (yoo-kah-LIP-tus) trees.

His mother ate leaves and flowers and young

bark from the trees. Eucalyptus (or "gum")

leaves are very oily. They made Kolo's

mother smell like a cough drop.

Koalas are choosy eaters. They do not

strip all the leaves from one tree. When

Kolo's mother left one tree to go to another,

she backed down. She moved very, very

slowly, grasping the trunk with all four legs.

Kolo clung tightly to her thick fur. He

didn't let go, even when they were on the

ground. His mother stopped to lick up some

dirt. (Probably this helped her to digest the

tough gum leaves.) Kolo hung on as his

mother slowly climbed another tree.

Early one night, halfway to a manna gum,

her favorite kind of eucalyptus, Kolo's

mother stopped short. She heard loud human

voices. Then she stalked along, trying to

Please turn the page

by Louise K. Dooley

ettlers who came to Jamestown,

S

Virginia, must have thought it was the

most valuable tree in the New World.

They loaded the very first boat back to

England with its bark and roots. George

Washington made sure it was planted in

both of his shrub gardens at Mount Vernon.

When Thomas Jefferson was in France, he

wrote home for seeds so he could introduce

the wonderful tree into Europe.

It wasn't an oak, a pine or even a sugar

maple. It was the sassafras (SAS-uh-fras)

----------- 2 -----------

by Fred McConnaughey

That's a fish?! Looks more like a rock!

A moss-covered rock. What's the point of a

fish looking like a rock?

Well, for one thing, it's a great way to get

food without working at it.

The spotted scorpion fish just nestles down

close to rocks. It waits right there-on a

muddy or grassy bottom, or on a coral reef.

Then when a smaller fish or crustacean

(kruh-STAY-shun) comes along-gulp-

it's gobbled up.

Looking like a rock works like a charm

for the scorpion fish. So does its ability to

change color. It can make itself look like

things around it. It hides so well it's very

hard to see-even though some scorpion

fish grow to be 18 inches (46 cm) long.

Cirri (SEER-y)-small growths-cover

its body, especially the head. They look so

plantlike that small fish might even try to get

close enough for a nibble-oops, too late:

That was not a seaweed on a rock! The

scorpion fish has a big mouth-a great help

in the pounce-and-gobble game.

Of course, it's not all rosy (or rocky) being

a fish that lies on the sea bottom most of

the time. Even though these fish are hard

to find, there's nothing to keep a sharp-eyed

larger fish from swimming right up and

taking a bite. A swimmer or wader could

step on one and squash it.

What protects the scorpion fish from

such fates? Well, it came by its name because

it carries poison, just as a scorpion does.

And like most, maybe all, of its 300 close

relatives, the scorpion fish carries the poison

in certain of its many spines. Any animal,

including a person, unlucky enough to get

stuck on the spines gets a poisonous injec-

tion. The spines on the fish's back can go

right through the sole of a tennis shoe!

Waders and swimmers in scorpion fish count

have to be very careful where they step.

Photos by Douglas Faulkner; Fred McConnaughey

----------- 3 -----------

Story and

Tom and Pat Leeson

Nan looked down

past her

black hooves. If she slipped

she'd fall almost 100 yards

(90 m) before hitting the

rocks below. But the height

I didn't bother Nan. Her soft,

skidproof hooves gripped the

rocks as she jumped and

walked across the face of the

cliff. Few other animals

there. Nan was a

could go

young mountain goat, or

kid- an expert climber.

Nan was born in late May

in Washington State's

Olympic National Park. At

birth she weighed a little

over 7 lbs (3 kg) and stood

about 13 inches (33 cm) tall

at the shoulder. Her mother,

called a nanny, kept Nan safe

among the rocks where a

few goats had spent the

winter. Nan's mother re-

turned to this place often to

let Nan nurse.

Nan is not a true goat.

Instead, she and all mountain

goats are closely related to

the goat-antelopes of Europe

-the chamois (SHAM-ee).

But the mountain men and

explorers who first saw these

animals called them moun-

tain goats. The name stuck.

For a few days Nan stayed

near the place she was born.

Little Nan's mother kept her

safe on the cliff where she was

born. Later they joined a

band of mountain goats

----------- 4 -----------

401 JANA AUL

38

Adapted from FROZEN SNAKES AND DINC

Imagine finding the bones

of a huge, ancient animal!

That's just what Mary

Anning did in England

in 1811.

Mary was 12 when she

found the skeleton of a sea

reptile that looked part fish,

part lizard. It had lived at

the same time as the land

monsters that later came to

be known as dinosaurs,

which means terrible lizards.

Millions of years ago dino.

saurs lived and died. Most of

them left no trace behind. But

the bodies of a few creatures

were buried by clay, mud or

sand-maybe during a flood.

When the dinosaur bodies

decayed, the bones stayed in

the ground. Over thousands

and thousands of years the

ground turned to rock with

the bones inside it. That kept

the bones from crumbling.

It is exciting to find the

bones or eggs of animals

that lived millions of years

ago-long before there were

people on earth.

If you went on a dinosaur

dig (a fossil hunt) you'd want

the help of some experts.

They would know how and

where to find dinosaur bones.

They would be scientists

who study fossils, earth

formations and the history

and life habits of animals.

Digging can be exciting-

but it's slow, hard work. You

would use a pick and shovel

to uncover rocks and look for

----------- 5 -----------

One of the best parts of

summer is watching butter-

flies. I think butterflies are

nearly the prettiest animals

of all (next to owls like me,

of course). I can tell from

your letters that a lot of

you Rangers like butterflies

too. Here are some of your

questions.

----------- 6 -----------

Dear Wise Old Owl:

Why are butterflies called

that? Do they like butter?

Donald Beane, Wayland, MI

The word butterfly has

been around for a long time,

so it's hard to say exactly

where it came from. People

used to believe that witches

in the form of butterflies

----------- 7 -----------

into a butterfly. It grows so

much that it outgrows its

skin several times (photo

5, a newly hatched and a

full-grown caterpillar).

When the caterpillar is

large enough, it crawls to

a safe place. It attaches

itself there with a bit of

silk and hangs head down

(photo 6). It sheds its skin

one more time and becomes

a chrysalis (KRIS-uh-lis)

(photo 7). This is the pupa.

The chrysalis cannot move,

but inside its hard shell

great changes are taking

place (photo 8).

When the adult butterfly

crawls from the chrysalis

(photo 9), it looks nothing

like the slow caterpillar.

It clings to the old shell as

it pumps its wet, crumpled

wings full of liquid (photo

10). Its body is long and

Please turn the page

----------- 8 -----------

New insects for old! A cicada

unfolds its shimmering new

wings as it clings beside its

empty skin. Soon the cater-

pillar on the front cover will

change too-into an elegant,

silky green luna moth.