Secrets of the Pond (1953)

[Music] well here is such a pond with its marvelous variety of uh animal and plant life in and around the water first thing that we see are these reads that uh all young children are familiar with the cat [Music] tail that of course is the flowering and fruiting part of the Cattail and here are some beautiful water lies I don't think there's anything prettier in nature than a lovely white water load famous French artist did a whole series of wonderful pictures of such flowers and the pond lies which are smaller they're yellow mostly but very [Music] attractive and there are all sorts of flowers and fruiting shrubs that you find in the swamps that I imagine you might find 50 species of all kinds around the pond that's nearest your own home we find thistles and Bone set and j p [Music] weed and also we find a mint and valan that is used as a medicine to reduce fever at least it used to be by the old-fashioned uh home remedy [Music] cookers and we find many uh varieties of uh The Parsley family including this water hemlock here to which the bees have been [Music] attracted and here we have one of the Wild Iris that we often find in our ponds and a snail is walking down the uh the flower itself of course the snail uh it has no housing problem wherever it goes it carries its house on its back which is a good idea the these crowded days now if you look at the water itself you may see something that looks like a green scum well that isn't scum at all that is a plant life uh millions and millions of small plants that we call algae as a matter of fact it's the simplest kind of plants Along With the Mosses it's a single cell plant the simplest form of plant life that that we know and here it is magnified several hundreds uh of times each little uh square that you see there is a single cell and they joined together in Long threads now these are very important uh they support all animal life in the long run they have a green coloring matter that produces oxygen uh when sunlight falls upon these plants and oxygen of course is needed in the water uh so that the animals that live in the water can breede this is the way it looks uh when you gaze at it yourself but of course under the microscope it looks entirely different and here are some of the uh protoo the Single Cell uh microscopic forms of animal life there are very many of them in odd shape too that's called stentor that particular species there and here's another one of the protozoa though there are hundreds of species in any teaspoon full of of pond water that you might take up and put under your microscope in this fashion and here is nocta miliaris that little protozone that I told you furnishes the sparkling water when it's there by the millions this is another type called a heliozoa oh I couldn't begin to name all the different kinds of protozoa that you will find as I say in a single teaspoonful of water this is an amoeba any high school student would recognize that as the first thing it probably saw under a microscope now at this point it's very difficult to tell a plants from the animals now these are plants that that is a desmid and that's another desmid even the scientists have to take a good look to be sure which is the plant and which is the animal when the life is this simple and primitive well we're back on the surface now we have these little whirly gig uh bugs skating around on the surface they go around in packs so to speak hordes and a Frog sticks up its head course there are oh a dozen different different species of frogs probably in the pond nearest your home very good swimmers too in case you want a lesson in Grace in swimming just watch any frog and these of course are uh tadpoles you know frogs lay their eggs and gelatinous masses in the water and the tadpoles hatch out with those tails that disappeared here's a whole hoorde of young tadpoles just out of the egg finally that tail disappears and the legs appear and the uh tadpole becomes a frog then they have to watch out because a wild duck like this has its young ones that might eat some of the uh smaller uh tadpoles and also a great deal of the vegetable matter that floats about in such ponds more vegetable matter than fishing or frog matter so to speak and the insects above of course such as this this lovely dragonfly sometimes called a darning needle it doesn't darn up anybody's ears it's really beneficial it eats mosquitoes as a matter of fact among other insects and in the Reeds we see a mass of floating vegetation that it looks suspicious so we pull apart the and we find that it's a a nest of some marsh bird and the bird has covered up the nest at least the eggs well here it is it's a gree it's a little gree sometimes called a dab chick it's a diving bird somewhat like a [Music] duck it's pretty well camouflaged there I'd [Music] say and here Among The Cattails is the nest of another bird oh it's a bunting one of the buntings and a snake another inhabitant of the pond area but don't be afraid it's not a dangerous snake this is called the colored Adder a d d e r and there's a toad the toad is a first cousin of the frogs you know prefers to live most of its life on dry land and has a rougher skin that's all and here is a climbing frog if you could uh look closely You' see that it has little suction pads at the tips of its toes these we call the spring peepers when we hear them in March and April in the evening mostly and of course there are all sorts of reeds where the great fragm mites Reed that grows in abundance around uh ponds [Music] I think there's something coming there this G has hurt it covers up its nest and takes it on the uh run there's a lizard going into the water too the whole Marsh is [Music] alerted oh it's a hedgehog well a hedgehog is not a duck or a fish but it can swim and evidently it has business across the [Music] pond Oho the adder is in its path which one will give way well the adder is going to make the uh first uh Bluff but the Hedgehog is uh not taking any Bluffs today it's pretty well protected you know by its quills so the little snake moves [Music] off of course snakes can swim very well and they can glide along the bottom of the pond too but of course not indefinitely they have to have air to breathe well these are just a few of the plants and the animals and the wonderful forms of microscopic life that you can find in any pond in your neighborhood it's wonderful I hope you'll look into it [Music] someday