Wisconsin School of the Air; Afield with Ranger Mac; 6

The Wisconsin School of the air invites you to go afield with Ranger Mac today boys and girls the travel field will be to learn about the eight legged paratroopers. Here's your guide Ranger Mack and little boys and girls. It's a crisp sparkling day in Madison. Let's be up and away you boys and girls we've trailed along with Ranger for a couple of years have developed you're thinking about the things of nature far enough to know that to have life is to have hunger and to satisfy a hunger means the sacrifice of other lives. This is true in the world of nature. It is true of us. It sounds cruel but it is not as crude as it sounds. The meat we eat is this sect means the sacrifice of the lives of animals. The frock coats worn by women means the sacrifice of the lives of

creatures. The homes that sheltered us were made from living trees. This is not the most pleasant of thoughts but it is true. Each creature that lives is equipped to get its living in its own way. So there are thousands of different ways and kinds of cunning. The hawk is equipped with Beacon claws in keenness of by it to bring death from the air. The soft feathered wings of the hour enables it to glide on heard through the darkness. Not the back bone of a rabbit. The cat has cushioned claws to stalk its prey and Strom hind legs to pounce upon it. The play catcher sits on a dead branch and darts out to catch a passing insect. The Newman wasp lays its eggs in the body of a

caterpillar and the larvae eat out the insides of the tent caterpillars devour the leaves of a living cherry tree. And so there are thousands of different devices and sorts of cunning in the natural viral load to satisfy the ever present hunger. One of the most interesting and curious is that of trapping at this is done by those little eight legged creatures we call spiders. The traps which they make for catching their prey can be seen everywhere in good weather. There is no garden or wooded space where the snares cannot be found. And there are some and there are as many different kinds of snares as there are different kinds of spiders. We see these snares sparkling with dew among the grasses On sunshiny days or

stretched from bush to bush spiders even make perfectly round Burrows straight down deep into the ground and lie in the burrows with a mesh of threads to make them secure with a trap door of saw oil and silk hinged with strong silken threads. The trap spider. Many of you have found funnel shaped webs in Philo's then maybe you are curious enough to push a straw into the spider's stronghold and laugh at the furious onslaught made by on the straw by the spider. If you have never watched an arbor spider or RB arm spider construct its nest or crossed an open space from bush to bush where currents of air can carry insects to it. Then you have missed out on a feat of good engineering.

Besides making a snare for insects. There are many other uses for these trains. The one we are particularly interested in this morning is the use of these trains for travelling by parachuting. But first let us find out where these threads come from. There sames to be an almost endless supply of them. Most spiders spin a fine thread continuously as they creep on every beat about their runs. This is a safety measure. The spider can follow the thread quickly back to its home in case of threatened danger or if it is on a high place and danger threatens. It can throw itself into mid-air and hang by its thread until the danger is past.

This continuous thread this dragline and the web clapping for trapping. For trapping Milos are only two of the uses of these trains. It would be a fascinating tale indeed. Could we discover all of the uses of these trains. Even the ruby throated Humming-Bird uses these threads robs the webs to get them to fasten together the plant down wood pulp and lichens which make up her dainty nest. Where does all this material come from to make these threads. Let's find out. The next time you see a spider do not act like Miss Muffet and let it frighten you away. But examine the spider closely. Get it to crawl on a pencil and play with it watch it plummet

itself into mid air to get away. Wind up the thread on the pencil as fast as the as the spider descends and watch the thread come from the end of the abdomen. It looks as though it actually uncaught Isles but it doesn't at the tip of the spider's abdomen. Our small finger like organs generally six in number. These are the spiders spin or ETs. These of minarets are joined by ducts or tubes with silt glands inside the spider's body. These grow and manufacture any liquid and are filled with the liquid all the time ready for use at any time. And when this liquid is pressed out through the tubes to the spinner it it hardens

immediately upon exposure to the air. A spider can jump from your pencil and hang by a thread so quickly does this liquid harden these glands produce liquid. I have different kinds of silk silk tough and elastic silk that is rubbery soft and will stretch silk that is sticky and silk for the manufacture of the web. So all of this is the source of supply and the way the threads are created by clever handling with the hind feet particularly at the web. The threads can be guided into the construction of the web. One of the uses of the silken threads is traveling through the air for a long time people have observed these flying spiders and wondered about them. We can only guess at the reasons

for their doing this. Maybe they want to get away from their parental home where there is no room for them. Maybe it is the pinch of hunger and they want to get to places where trapping might be better. Maybe it is simply letting off steam. Because there is an overproduction of silk liquid in their glans spiders each other just as little pipes do and maybe they take these journeys to save their lives. We can only guess at why they do it but we know that they do do it. It seems to be a part of the restlessness of autumn such as we see in birds and it seems to be confined quite largely to small spiders. Now this is the way they make their parachutes.

The young the small young spiders climb to the tops of the top plant branches and the like. And here they stand on tip toe with their hand facing into the current of air from their spinner rats they stand out find separate the threads of silt that float out on the current of air. When these threads are long enough to carry the spider the spider lets go its hold and sails away as it loses its hold. It turns on its back grasps one of the threads and we use a tiny cradle in which to which it can cling. Now the parachute is complete and the spider drips. Whether the wind may carry carry it. Many plants like the dandelion and thistles milkweeds have a similar way of sending their young in to new places to start life

anew away from the parent plants. Sometimes in meadows and ploughed fields we can see these fallen friends myriads of them glistening in the sunlight. The whole earth quivering like a living thing three or four days ago one of these spiders alighted on the page of a book I was reading. It ran to the top of the page where a lot about stood on tip toe thrust its abdomen into the air sent out a thread and then took its departure to know nature. You must live with nature to live with nature is to learn life itself. To make it meaningful. You cannot expect to learn much by simply listening to Ranger Mack. You must get out to see things for yourself to handle things. Don't listen to the voices of nature to do things.

We all know that this is the best way to go. Make lessons real and lasting. The conservation corner is an encouragement to do this. There is there is no realm where illustrations are closer at hand for nature is all about us and we ourselves are a part of it. The conservation corner is a great teaching device a creator of interest a bond of attachment to the school because of its interest. Now let us urge pupils. Let me urge pupils and teachers to try this activity not because there are a large but simply because of the help it can be in teaching pupils to know the life about them and it fits so well with other subjects particularly with written and oral English. You will find the conservation corner described in full detail in the teacher's manual how to bring what is going on in the

outdoors On sunshiny days into the schoolroom. Let us try this little experiment. Stand a pencil on a piece of potato in a pipe pan in which a little water has been poured. Catch a small spider and place it on the pencil. Then watch and watch it make its escape. You might be interested to know that that the idea of spun glass later on that of making threads of grey on started in such an observation as you would be carrying on. We read about the Indian conjurer who throws a rope into the air and then climbs it. We can see the spider actually doing something of this sort. So the spider becomes something it becomes something more than a spider of picnics and a cause of cobwebs in the corners of the house.

It is a rare architect a trapper of insects a weaver of webs of rare beauty and some spiders make threads so strong that they are used in instruments where a shot changes in temperature must be withstood and for real artistry there is nothing to excel. A web heavy with do with the sun making a diamond of every little drop. And May your days now will be filled with many such inspiring sights. Until we meet on the trail again and may the Great Spirit put sunshine in your heart today and for evermore heap much the familiar Indian family hell brings us to the end of another trip of failed with Ranger Mack the Wisconsin School of the air will present Ranger Mack again next Monday at 9:30 boys and girls to take you down another

hike on the nature trail. This is the Wisconsin School of the air.