Excellent condition or better.

46 pages

January 1979

Volume 13, Number 1

4 Dear Ranger Rick - Fish Tales

Lost on an Ice Floe

9

13

Nature Did it First

14 Wise Old Owl

16 Four Seasons Poems

Where Do They Go in Winter?

21 Muskrat Marsh

18

24a Annual Index

26 Graveyard of the Giants

30 Cuckoos Aren't Cuckoo

32 Nature Club News

34

Masks to Make

36 Hollow Oak Book Nook

37 Happy Bee

38 What Do You Know About

Snakes and Ants?

40 Anole Antics

44 Ranger Rick and His Friends

Cover Credits: Walrus by Rollie Ostermick; Pine Marten

by Hans Reinhard/Bruce Coleman, Inc.; Page 2-Hedge

Sparrow feeding young Cuckoo by John Markham/Bruce

Coleman, Inc.

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by Beverly Letchworth

In the summer, insects are

everywhere. Flies and ants

come to all your picnics.

Mosquitoes hum around your

ears. Cicadas make a noisy

buzzing music.

Then cold weather comes,

and the insects are gone.

Where are they? Where do

they go?

When winter comes, the

flies die. But they leave

their offspring - larvae,

pupae and bunches of long,

white eggs. These wait all

winter in piles of decaying

plants and manure. In the

spring new batches of adult

flies appear.

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Muskrat

Marsh

by Mary Loraine Heaton

The marsh where the muskrats lived

was flooding this year. It was still Jan-

uary, but warm, rainy weather began to

melt the snow and ice. Some of the

muskrats' winter huts were in danger of

being flooded. There was work to be done!

One house had a large hole on top.

Looking out was Onda, a male muskrat.

He was watching Atra, a female, swim

quickly about, back and forth, back and

forth. She piled up cattail stalks, raising

the top of the hut higher above the

rapidly rising water. In half a day Atra

had finished. The hut was sitting high

and dry and the hole was sealed. She

dived through her underwater burrow

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6

by Vincent M. Tilby

The huge brontosaurus

(bron-toe-SAWR-us) dino-

saur was trying to get

far away from its enemy.

Wounded, it lumbered and

staggered, getting weaker

and weaker. It had never

been able to move very fast,

but now its strength was

draining away. Blood flowed

from many terrible gashes

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on its back and neck. It had

been attacked by another

dinosaur, an antrodemus

(an-troe-DEEM-us). (See

pages 24 and 25.)

The antrodemus was

smaller than the bronto-

saurus. But its powerful

jaws and sharp teeth had

deeply slashed and torn the

flesh of the brontosaurus.

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But the antrodemus had

been stunned by a hard

blow from the tail of the

brontosaurus.

The brontosaurus was a

plant eater. It had small,

weak jaws and teeth, so its

only weapon was its power-

ful tail. It used its tail as a

club. This time it had hit

its attacker hard enough to

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s by Hans Reinhard (30B); John Markham/all Bruce Coleman, Inc.

by Lee Stowell Cullen

Indeed they are not cuckoo!

Many of these birds have some

amazing habits. Their habits

easily fool other birds and

make humans wonder how

the cuckoos do it.

Some people might call the

European cuckoos lazy. Others

might say they are bad because

they are parasites. (Parasite

means an animal that lives at

the expense of others.) These

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cuckoos do not build their own

nests. Instead they lay their

eggs in other birds' nests, then

fly away forever.

Different European cuckoos

lay different color eggs. Some

lay pale blue or orange eggs,

others lay speckled eggs. It's

amazing that most cuckoos

choose nests of birds whose

eggs match their own!

And believe it or not, a

SLAVE

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MASKS

TO

MAKE

by Donna Miller

Many American children wear masks at

Halloween, but some people in Africa use

them for tribal dances. Their masks

represent animals or gods or sometimes

ghosts of the dead.

Some Africans believe that a "spirit"

lives within each mask. It may be the spirit

of a natural power, such as the sun or

moon. Or it may be an evil spirit. The

masks are carved from wood and often

painted with mud. Beads, feathers and rope

are added for decoration.

Try making your own African masks from

plastic bottles and papier-mâché. For free

instructions on how to make the masks on

these pages send a self-addressed stamped

envelope to: Dept. 20, National Wildlife

Federation, 1412 16th Street NW,

Washington, DC 20036.

The End

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With head bobbing and

dewlap flashing, a male

anole tries to frighten off

his enemies. But wait! One

creature likes the show

and comes closer. Turn

the page and find out

who and why.

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This young European pine marten is a good tree climber.

And when it jumps, it lands like a cat, on all fours.