 of ground that might be found most anywhere. It's not any one place but many places. It's a typical field in the country. A forgotten corner might even be a backyard garden or a patch of wildflowers on a hillside. While this may seem a rather commonplace setting for a true life adventure, actually we've come upon a fantastic book of wonders. And when we get close enough to read between the leaves, we may discover there's more in nature's habaker than first meets the eye. In this tiny grassroots world there are literally millions of inhabitants. For the moment all looks calm and serene. And yet there is violence here, sudden death. Nature is concerned not with the individual, but with the preservation of the species. And so some must die that others may live. In this way she keeps her world in balance and makes it a place of order and beauty. At this time of year beauty is everywhere. Beauty to fill the eye and please the ear. For now all the sounds of the outdoors lift and blend to become a symphony of strength. It's an appearance that more than makes up for it. The hummingbird balances her tiny apartment upon a single tweak. And for the artistic touch adds a soft lining of down. Stills for building take many forms. The spiders make their own. Silk is not always used for web making. The spider for instance uses the silvery strands of an aerial highway over which he travels from flower to flower. To begin her nest the leaf cutting B slices out a perfect circle. And the swallows can always find an abundant supply of mud. The mortar for their cliff dwelling. But if the birds build a strange assortment of nests, some creatures have no nests at all. The sawfly for instance bores a deep hole in a tree. And there she deposits her eggs. To this purpose she's equipped with a curious drill that can penetrate even the hardest of woods. Later her cousin happens along a parasite and she lays her eggs in the same nest. Her young will feed upon the eggs of the sawfly. The moth prefers the easy way and merely glues hers to a twig. In due time the new families begin to appear. The caterpillars are born hungry and begin life by dining on their own eggshells. There are caterpillars of every kind in color but they all have one thing in common. An insatiable appetite. When this destructive force is turned loose in nature's half acre nature's balance is threatened. For if left unchecked the caterpillars would soon reduce this leafy paradise to a place of desolation. Which mothers and fathers together patiently tenderize a caterpillar before giving it to their young. Youngsters aren't all raised on some families specialized in dragonfly. Others like the woodpeckers thrive on the eggs and grubs that father finds under the bark of trees. It's a sort of infant formula. A mixture containing nectar and defeat a whole family. Since little junior in the back row sadly neglected. Well no matter father will be along in a minute but like most husbands papa gets all mixed up and sees everybody about junior. Junior swaps his head off. Let the no avail. Mother always stands fine with the cow birds. This heartless creature lays her eggs in another bird's nest and then flies away never to return. Her egg large and speckled looks quite different from the others. In fact it wouldn't fool anyone except the foster mother. She raises the fledgling as her own and never seems to notice that he's much bigger and hungrier than her stepbrothers. To show his gratitude the cow bird pushes the others out of the nest one by one until eventually he alone is left. It seems a mother just can't sit still a minute these days or even as fledgling the young birds continue to demand attention. Now whoever heard of a stubborn chickadee. Well here's the proof. The hectic activity begun in spring never diminishes. The bumblebee for instance visually gathering food for her family pollinates the flowers at the same time. The bee's contribution is of course accidental and yet without this exchange of pollen the flowers couldn't exist. These nest incurious places. In this case they've chosen the abandoned nest of a field mouse. The newborn have an extremely short childhood. In fact within 48 hours this new arrival will be working as hard as the others. Yet when it comes to keeping busy the bumblebee is hardly in the same class with her smaller cousin the honeybee. A honeybee is a versatile worker and can perform a dozen tasks equally well. But perhaps her most important job is the gathering of nectar and pollen for the bee pollen. To the bee pollen is the staff of life. She combs it into little balls which she attaches to her legs. Whenever a bee discovered a new supply of pollen she hurries home to tell the other. It's an amazing fact that she actually does communicate with her fellow workers through this strange little ritual known as the pollen dam so makes known the exact location of the pollen crop. At once the workers make a beeline for the fields to reap the golden harvest. The queen bee however remains at home. Here she is the center of attention. Actually she's not a queen at all. She's an egg laying machine going from one cell to another endlessly depositing her eggs. She alone is able to reproduce her kindly. The eggs pass through the larval stage in these wax cells and now a newborn bee emerges from its cradle. She will at once begin her apprenticeship in this highly organized community. One of the apprentice's first assignments is that of wax maker and she helps build the new cells in which the honey will be stored and next she helps make the honey. The apprentice bee receives the nectar brought in by the field bees and then combines it with a natural chemical inside her body converting it to honey. This she pipes through her hollow tongue into the storage cell. At the proper time a bee instinctively knows that her apprenticeship is over so she joins the other workers in the field. The life of the honey bee is very brief. In a few short weeks she literally flies her wings to tatter. Soon she will die from overwork or else fall prey to her enemies. The trap is strong the bee exhausted and the spider very death that he packages his visitor for a future meal. In nature's half acre there's only one law the law of survival. Spider wins one battle you may lose the next for his natural enemy is the mud dobbler a wasp that constructs a cured chamber. She'll make many trips to the mud bank before it's finished strangely this will be both the birthplace for her young and the burial place for her enemies. Here she will lay her eggs and here she will store the spiders she is paralyzed with her sting. The spiders do not die but remain in a state of suspended animation until they become fresh food for the newborn young. Sealing the chamber is the final act in the mud dobbler's curious ritual. There are secret places in nature's half acre where beauty is an invitation to disaster. Here may be found strange carnivorous plant forms that prey upon insects and draw sustenance from them. The tentacles of the sun dew are tipped with nectar an irresistible lure to the unwary. The venus flytrap operates with deadly precision there's simply no escape for the fly that touches the delicate hair trigger. In the continuing struggle for existence numbers will sometimes offset a difference in size. There is for example a strange little fellow called an ant lion. He would never attack the ants in a body instead he builds an ingenious sand trap to snare the stragglers. He digs a crater in the sand and buries himself at the bottom. If an ant blunders in he rarely gets out but the ant lion keeps digging away pulling the ground from under his victim's feet until he tumbles to his death. Friendly nightmare of all the insect exterminators there's none to equal the praying mantis. He'll eat anything. In the orient he's often kept as a household pet for despite his menacing looks he's really quite harmless to humans that is and devil may care and fears nothing not even the deadly black widow spider. Oddly enough he's his own worst enemy for nature is also undoubtedly with a special taste for his own kind. Toad is really something of a magician or he proves that the tongue is quicker than the eye. Now you see it now you don't. The chameleon however goes the toad one better his tongue has twice the muzzle velocity and three times the range. He does all of his sniping from a distance and yet his record for consecutive bull's eyes is well not perfect more than that he can change colors to match his surroundings and stranger still his eyes work quite independently of each other so that he can look in two directions at once or in one direction twice everything catches his eye so the chameleon catches everything this regrettable habit of everybody eating everybody else a few of each species always managed to survive as fall approaches some of the remaining caterpillars laced themselves into winter sleeping bags others spin themselves a bower of silvery silk for their long winter sleep the giddy mrs mantis just to be different prepares a nest of frog protect her precious eggs but she's not as silly as she seems for the fragile substance will soon harden to the toughness of a walnut this gaudy creature spins herself a safety belt to a twig she proceeds to solve a problem that has plagued all females ever since the corset was embedded as she becomes a drab chrysalis which eventually takes on the protective coloring of its surroundings in nature's half acre the turning leaves foretell the coming of winter at this season she touches her world with strange patterns and unexpected designs a tiny waterfall becomes a silver fan it a foam a gaily decorated cake and even the poorest bush a fantasy and crystal when he is settled to a murmur even the running stream will soon be still the first snowfall the long silence closes in the tide of life sinks to its lowest air the months turn the winter's icy grip is finally broken the trees stand there and lifeless against the sky and yet this is the time when nature stages her most impressive spectacle the reawakening of life first few days of spring growing things rise from the earth and reach upward to the sun while beneath the ground dormant seeds stretch out their roots for sustenance of course the slow process of plant growth requires days often weeks but the modern camera telescopes time and permits us to observe miracles the human eye alone could never see in nature's book of wonders this is the chapter of genesis and at last the wondrous check nature's miracles have come full