Friday, July 9, 2010

Watchers at the Pond. Franklin Russell (2)

 New York: Time Incorporated. 1961.

Why read it? Nature. A study of what happens within the setting of a pond as the seasons evolve. Ponds are teeming with life, much of it hidden from most people unless observed by a naturalist. The reader will discover the unseen world of the pond in winter, spring, summer, fall and back to winter again.

Ideas:
“The differences between plant and animal among this microlife were incomprehensible and contradictory and seemed to indicate only one fact: the origins of this life went back to a creature that was neither plant or animal.” P. 85. ………. The red-tailed hawk: His scream in the hot sky griped the senses, and the vertical fall of his body terrified the forest.” P. 87. ………. “…size was no criterion of the hunter’s skill and  power.” P. 88. ………. “All pond creatures had particular enemies who perpetually haunted their lives.” P. 103. ………. “In an hour, one bladdewort caught five hundred thousand creatures.” P. 111. ………. “The worm gulped down the rotifer, and the frog swallowed the worm; the kingfisher killed the frog, and the hunt passed endlessly from creature to creature.” P. 114. ………. “In death there was life.” P. 116. ……….. “The unknowing eye saw the stillness and missed the vortex of life within.” P. 154. ………. “The bat calls bounded off all flying insects, and the reflected sounds informed the bats of distance, directions, and speeds.” P. 156. ………. “Their [the bats’] crazy zigzagging flight branched from mosquito to moth in blind destruction of flying life.” P. 156. ………. “The bats lived in an almost completely dark world of echo.” P. 156.

To be continued. 

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