Book Notes - Hurry, Spring

One book that was on my "Books I Want to Read" list was Hurry, Spring! by Sterling North, the author of Rascal. The drawings in this children's book were done by Carl Burger. I'm not sure when I put this book on my list of books that I want to read...perhaps long ago when the girls were young and we were doing more nature hikes and nature studies. 

At any rate, this book, written in 1966, is an easy read and full of beautiful black-and-white illustrations and intriguing facts about wildlife.

Some facts that I found interesting were:

- Skunks wander many miles early in the spring, hunting for maters. The little babies are called "woods kittens." 

- Wood ducks have about 8-12 ducklings each spring. They can evade almost "any predator except the snapping turtle, who with reptilian stealth pulls these charming bits of thistledown to their deaths."

- There are at least 15 references to lilies in the Bible.

- The ruby-throated hummingbird builds a nest of green lichens and cobwebs smaller than a silver dollar, with eggs the size of your little fingernail. 

- There are at least 40 varieties of wrens and more than 100 varieties of warblers. 

- Sometimes it seems that the more endangered the bird, the more eggs it lays. A dozen or more eggs are not unusual for the much-hunted wild ducks. For Canada geese, 3 to 7 are usual, with 4 goslings frequently brought to maturity. 

- It takes a worm a minute to satisfy a baby cardinal.