Wisconsin School of the Air; Afield with Ranger Mac; 18

The Wisconsin school there invites you to go off field where the Ranger MK today boys and girls your nature hike is going to lead to the discovery of camouflage in nature. And now here's your guide Ranger Mack. Hello girls and boys. This is your day. So up on the way some of you boys and girls have been going up the river for a number of years. By this time you should feel that mother nature has been very thoughtful in providing for the life and comfort of her children. Nature protects her own. For instance at last we showed how the tables of creatures are an aid to better owners in special ways at tables are pieces of equipment that help their owners carry on the business of living on another park trips. We pointed out how some animals have difficulty meeting the competition of winter. So

Mother Nature puts them in cool storage to sleep until the sun returns and better days come back again. On another trip we showed how it was made necessary for all life and how Mother Nature invented a plan of carrying water by means of clouds to her children. But there are parts of the where ever were the clouds seldom visit and rain so close many different kinds of plants and animals live in these dry areas of our globe. Mother Nature takes care of them or they would not be there. Many of the desert plants have thick fleshy leaves with tough covering. These leaves store moist you're at in times of plenty for the long periods when no moisture

is provided. Desert animals seldom get a chance to drink but water is just as necessary to their lives as to animals living elsewhere. So nature has provided intestines in these animals that convert the starch of the food they eat into water. Some of these animals have been kept in captivity just for experimental purposes have been kept in captivity for six months without once taking a drink. There are qualities and be of many kinds. Speed and cunning keenness of the senses. Each kind of animal is equipped in some special way to get its food. But all must eat. Eyes of the owl at night. Radar for the bat to dodge obstacles while screaming in the air for insects. Not only is each animal equipped to find its food but it is equipped to avoid being

made food of what every animal that lives has its mortal enemy No 1 and not one that is looking to make a square meal of it frequently. We have talked about the equipment Mother Nature provides her children. To enable them to carry on the business of living. Today we are going to talk about an equipment which I think is very clever at times beautiful and artistic. It is called a comma fly. Comic Raj is a French word that came into use during the First World War. I thought of folks can remember how ships were painted with stripes like tigers and with dots like leopards the painted figures broke up the solid color of the ships and the outlines of the vessels were lost on the flat surface of the ocean.

Come up large means to disguise it means more than that it means to conceal deceive. Occasionally my son gets out a one piece war garment that he wore in the Philippines all mottled with colors seen in nature. A man wearing such a garment is in less danger of being seen at a distance because he blends into the landscape and his outline is lost. That is the meaning of calm your plush man copied the art of calm your plodders nature where creatures have been practicing it for no one knows how long. If nature were guilty of having any tricks but nature it isn't. But if you were guilty of having any tricks in her bag of magic I should say that Kami applies comes rather close to a trick.

Many of our career leaders have seen a tiger in a zoo or at a circus. His stripes of black and yellow are very striking to the eye and he stands out boldly with his contracted colors. But in the grasses of the jungle where he belongs. These stripes matched the coarse upstanding grasses and he paid into his surroundings. That's the trick of camouflage. Let's select an animal that is permitted to us the the palm. The form has white spots on a coat of earthy color and when the mother deer wishes to go out browsing by herself she leaves her offspring beneath the leaves of an overhanging Bush where it spots an earthy color blend with the dappled light and shadows. The little creature blend so

completely into its surroundings. At that it is invisible to its enemies and nature is doubly kind to the fawn. We are told that the farm gives off no scent so it is protected from the nose as well as from the eyes of its enemies. So the Fawn has a good chance to grow to be a deer. When the paw. Farm grows to be a bear. It has two different coats one for summer and one for winter and the reddish brown coat of summer blends with the heavy poly in summer its winter coat is a lighter brown sprinkled generously with gravy. This brownish gray coat of winter blends with the dead leaves of on the ground and the gray leafless branches and twigs of bushes and trees. In these surroundings the fawn or the deer are is difficult to see. As long as it remains

motionless another of our common animals is the clever that is clever in the art of camouflage is the cottontail rabbit. It is grayish brown on the back and a little lighter along the sides. The ears are edged with a slightly darker color and the stub and the stub of a tail provides a white fluff at the rear. So Bunny fits in admirably with its natural surroundings and so long as it remains motionless it is difficult to discover. I have watched a rabbit a few feet away for half an hour at a time and for the life of me I could not detect the slightest movement even of an eyelid. All the time I suppose the rabbit felt he was unobserved safe in the protection of his calm apply. You would be surprised and maybe a little bit self conscious while walking

through the woods. If you realize the number of hidden eyes watching you. Probably the most startling example of protection and concealment by come up large can be found in the north in the Arctic regions. Of the polar bear living among ice floes is always white. It's common for large is not for protection but for concealment. A saw that it can steal unseen upon the sea and capture SEALs who many of the animals of the Arctic regions remain permanently white. Unlike the arctic fox and air but to the south. Where the snows disappear in the summer the animals change their coats with the seasons. The snowshoe hare of northern Wisconsin is a good example. It is continuously changing

its coat in. In winter the coat is as white as the piled up snow flakes. It changes to a brown and white in spring to a grayish brown in summer and back to the Snow White in winter. Our Weasel has about the same kind of wardrobe in summer or the cold is brown but as winter comes on it gradually sheds the brown hairs replacing them with white all white. In winter except the tip of the tail which is black. Giving this black tip to the tail of the Weasel is a kind act on the part of nature a brother Weasel has many enemies. Owls Hawks foxes wolves lynx but this black tail and this black tip to the tail is a fuller in pouncing on the weasel. The eyes of the predator are focused on the black tip of the tail but this

black tip is located many inches away from the body of the weasel. And so the weasels chances of escape are quite good. Of course there are thousands of examples of protective coloration that is common for large among birds insects worms and animals of all kinds among the birds perhaps the master of the comet. It is the bittern of our swamps and marshes sometimes called the pump sucker and the Thunder Bird. Here it makes a nest of native grasses that give the nursery its nest a perfect calm of collage. Here are the bird corridors frogs and small fish. It plunges into its plumage as the color of the of the reeds among which it lives and when it stands stiff and upright it resembles closely the deal plants when the winds

set the cat tails and their grasses into motion. This bird swings from side to side with the plants. It is practically invisible. It seems to know it too. It will allow one to walk within a very few feet without taking wing. Of course this swing from side to side with the plants is not come upon it. It is mimicry. Its its method of catching frogs crabs and other aquatic creatures. Is mimicry of salt. It will stand like a dead branch of a tree in shallow water one a swimming creature approaches wholly unaware of any danger. The head shoots forth with lightning speed and the long build changes along build clamps on its proved. The woodcock is another master of camouflage its plumage resembles so well the

brown leaves and grasses that it seldom finds it necessary to fly up when danger approaches. Once an hour once in a great while while hiking through the woods with a group of young people a keen observer among them will discover a night hawk or a whip or a whale on the branch of a tree. This rarely happens however and because the feathers resemble so closely the bark of the tree and where it rests during the day. It has added protection because it rests lengthwise on the branch. It looks just like a part of a tree. When I am our I discover the nest of a killer bear and wish to return to it later on. I drive a stake in the ground to locate the spot. Because I know it is difficult to rediscover it again

the speckled eggs of the kewl deer resemble the ground upon which the eggs are laid. That is and it only by accident that the nest is discovered at all. So common is another one of the ways that Mother Nature cares for the life the safety and the comfort of her children may each day be a happy day until we meet on the trail again next week. And may the Great Spirit put sunshine in your heart today and for evermore. He much the familiar Indian farewell brings us to the end of another trip a field where the Ranger Mack. Next week boys and girls your radio guide is going to have some suggestions for you on buttons from shelves. So until then we'll say goodbye to Ranger Matt. This is the Wisconsin School of the air.