Wonders In A Country Stream (1950)

[Music] have you ever gone out in the country on a warm sunny day and F it's fun playing in a stream isn't it waiting and wiggling your toes in the sand but have you ever looked closely to see what you can find there are many wonderful animals living in a stream if you lie still and watch you'll see small fish where the water runs deep you may be surprised to find a garter snake watching you there are strange moving Shadows made by insects that walk on water close by a damsel fly Suns itself on a rock yes there are wonderful things for you to find if you only look Let's Get Down close with this boy and girl and see what we can find that's a strange looking thing do you suppose it's alive lying in the water it looks like the bottom of the stream but watch there a young ctis fly is hiding inside if he didn't move you'd hardly know anything was there but if you look in at the end you can see that he lives in a house shaped like a small tunnel he builds this house out of sand and bark so fish and other water animals won't eat him they probably won't even see him look at the trouble he's having pull pull pull that's a heavy h house for a little animal to drag about it keeps him safe though so it must be worth all the trouble this insect has a cousin that builds a different kind of house inside he can stay hidden from a fish looking for there he is now sometimes house is called a log cabin because it's made of pieces of bark or wood see how tightly it's put together there are other water animals that carry their houses around with them here's one you all know a turtle see how he can pull his head and legs in under his shell when he thinks something might hurt him he doesn't seem to be very afraid of us though does he this kind of turtle is called a snapping turtle because he snaps at things to eat he won't snap at us though because he's still so small a turtle has no teeth but the edge of his mouth is sharp and his Jaws are very very strong so when he grows up we'll have to be careful that he doesn't snap at our fingers and really hurt us let's turn him over on his back and look at his Underside whoops once again well he doesn't seem to like it on his back if we hold him up we can see that he has a shell on this side too as a matter of fact the only parts that aren't covered are where his head and tail and legs come out even these can't be hurt easily see how thick the skin is that covers his legs he doesn't like to be held let's put him down and let him go back into the water even though you can't see anything at first something will be hiding in every pool in the Stream who knows know is the name of this strange looking creature it's a noot some people call it a water dog or salamander watch how clumsily it walks that's because it spends much of its life in water as a matter of fact the most interesting thing about a noot is that it is partly a water animal and partly a land animal here in a pool of water are several of its eggs bunched together this is the way a n begins life then one day it hatches out into a tiny animal that looks like a baby fish here he is resting beside the eggs that still hold some of his brothers and sisters if you look closely you can see one of them turn over in its egg there did you see it a baby noot can breathe underwater as a fish does he breathes through what we call gills these gills stand out from his neck like small feathers here is a young n when he has grown almost to the size of your little finger he has legs and can walk now he's beginning to look like a grownup n except that he still has his feathery gills when he finally does grow up he loses his gills now he can live on land or in water can you think of any other animal that starts out life in water and then grows legs something that hops right a frog whoops oh come on now there there have you ever tried to catch a frog even a baby frog like this one he certainly can jump and it wasn't so long ago that he didn't have any legs at all of course you all know what a frog is before he turns into a frog that's right a polywog or perhaps you call it a tadpole probably some of you have caught poliwags and watched them grow for a long while there isn't any change they swim about with their long tails and round eyes and round mouths then suddenly one day you find that they're growing some hind legs like this polywog son will grow front legs too do you see the bump where one of his front legs is going to be here he is a day or so later with four legs like The N he can breathe out of water now for the first time his tail is getting smaller already soon it will be gone completely and then he will be a frog he certainly can breathe out of water now watch his throat go in and out as he takes quick little breaths and now his long hind legs have grown strong he always sits on them in position I a jump the second he thinks he sees danger coming because he's a tree frog he can climb up the side of the jar and stay there not all frogs can do this the reason he is able to hold on is that he has small places on the end of each toe that stick to the glass if you've never done it you should catch some poliwags and watch them grow into frogs you can learn many wonderful things about them why don't you see how many animals you can find the next time you go out in the country to a stream you may find all of these and many more and you'll be surprised at how much fun you'll have even more fun than waiting and wiggling your toes in the sand [Music]