Watchers at the Pond. Frankliln Russell (4).

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 lightning burned through the air and created a huge vacuum, into which the vapor-packed air hurtled…created an explosion that rocked the earth, and the concussion fled along the line of the lightning strike and ended with a crackle far beyond the marsh.” p. 179. ………. “Death was a process of reduction, and bacteria were the prime reducers.” P. 193. ………. “The blue sky was not caused by clarity but by turbidity, or countless dust particles.” P. 200. ………. “Each space of air the size of a robin’s egg contained more than a million of these particles, and they were filters that reduced the sun’s heat and cut out the reds, violets, and greens of light from space, allowing only the dominant color of blue to reach the pond.” P. 201. ………. “Later that day…male [flying] ants fell steadily from the sky, dying and dead…their lives…ended the moment they mated with the flying females….” P. 203. ………. “…more than ten thousand blue jays flooded past the pond: their massed flight…overwhelming, as though a single creature of unbelievable size had exploded into sight.” P. 209. ………. “The next day, another twenty thousand crows passed, and forty thousand the next day, and twenty thousand the next day, and then fifteen thousand and thirty thousand and fifty thousand, and black columns of birds stretched almost unbroken from horizon to horizon.” P. 210.

To be concluded.