Page eA Ue SURO Nee Bi Ue Lei EI oN 49 
Capistrano return to a child in 
Buenos Aires. Ronald Rood, who 
lives in Vermont, has written a 
warm volume about the changing 
scene of the natural world and 
helps us understand the whole 
process. 
He points out that owls mature 
slowly and so need an early start 
in life. I relished his comments 
about the Great Horned Owl as 
I recalled the nest we saw in Feb- 
ruary in the Morton Arboretum. 
He writes, “There are no -tree 
leaves to interfere with vision. Ani- 
mals befuddled with sleep, feeling 
the pangs of hunger throw 
caution aside. The result is a sit- 
uation just made for the predator. 
With the owl dropping right into 
place, it is able to descend upon a 
careless rabbit and thus feed her 
young brood.” 
An amusing incident is revealed 
in the case of a Baltimore Oriole 
who was busy making his long, 
graceful nest in an elm tree. A 
friend of the author decided to 
play a phonograph record, which 
carried the song of the Oriole, to 
the nest builder. It stopped the 
Oriole cold, causing both he and 
his mate to fly through the trees, 
never to be seen again. Very likely, 
they were intimidated by the rec- 
ord call which may have indicated 
that the territory had already been 
staked out. 
—Raymond Mostek 
NIXON & THE ENVIRONMENT 
Edited by James Rathlesberger 
The Village Voice, 1972 
$2.45 paperback 
Since this book was more than 
campaign propaganda, its review 
is presented as educational infor- 
mation. Its authors are thirteen 
activists, mainly concerned, ener- 
getic young citizens of whom 
Porcupine, one of the drawings by 
Carrye E. Schenk for “Who Wakes 
the Groundhog?” by Ronald Rood. 
Michael Frome in Field and Stream 
says “In the past couple of years 
they have come on like gang- 
busters in the surge of the new 
environmentalism, and their influ- 
ence is certainly destined to grow.” 
A long chapter on water pollu- 
tion by David Zwick, who directed 
the Nader Task Force on water 
pollution and co-authored ‘Water 
Wasteland,” a report based on a 
two-year pollution study, charges 
that the Nixon record on proposed 
pollution legislation has been 
marked by its solicitude toward .in- 
dustrial polluters. It is also claimed 
that the Administration is reluc- 
tant to apply the basic principles 
of law and order to big business 
outlaws, illustrated by the 1970 
Nixon Water Pollution Proposal 
under which the polluter guilty of 
dumping in violation of the law 
could not be fined, or even ordered 
to stop, until first given six month 
notice. (During this time violators 
would be free to pollute with im- 
punity.) 
