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the tribune stoufivilte om thursday november 20 1947 a strange farmer in our midst the bus ranch at oak ridges i im0msmom v c fred bodsworsh ir macleans magazine the animals sufficient for 50 students now he said and we catch 400 10 aquarium minnows to include or 500 for the other tank before two sticklebacks and two catfish tonight his advance estimate- uia you like to buy an assort- f ij newts and two water was not far out i went along on i merit ni snail eggs at cents a snails three bunches of water the frog hunt and kept score the dozen a few turtle hearts at two plants 25 pounds of aquarium sand i count at the end of the dav was dollars each or maybe the skuvoi ark 0 aquarium net i37s jxtr s fhijhlbast highschool orders of thls type final housing project on the gain price 9s cents or a live null- j fivg guaran average price approximately hah were sold alivp troyers conscientious effort to 1 to universities and medical labora- provide schools with specimens that tories for experimental research best illustrate their courses of and half as preserved specimens to study cuus profits still lower some- high schools another big seller is times he spends days seeking out perch armed with a special govern- a certain insect or animal to com ment permit trover catches and plete a demonstration series when wmmmmmkiffisxqt rents or a me ouu- st v sprague trover collect- the rear of the lot in which rabbits need to be in ood eu and sod aboul i0 frogs al a and whue rau are reared n ioiirrr ro average price of 10 cents each field work health for one dollar rates re duced if larger quantities desired you will find these and hundreds of other related items for sale at canadas strangest farm 11 miles west of stouffvihe at oak ridges they are not merely for sale stran- ouatuiilarhirthe vouth- vtooo of them a year for something suitable but not the best utovnator inf oer srcimffe ma se a f hours natural science service is fre- f classea the university trade pays quently four to six months behind creatures h collects better he says for they need in filling orders himself and hen either preserves larger quantities but it is just in lor holds alive at his oak ridges the last year or two that ive been t uined biologist has turned a queer i j hobby into an even queerer means ihin i mit nr hi komi i l l aoi oi montj mini of makinc a livin and despite the vvltnm p nis home business there is just a living he ih7h1rt tet ad i- bul frequently it is necessary for says but im not in it to get rich ndttedw unn easant tasks 1u 65 w make 3 t to lakc if i wanted to do that id hire a mittedlj unpieaant tasks like e search of specimens not dozen men to do mv collecting hunting down rattlesnakes to bring in the tol re and white i staved hom behind my mem in alive and wading cold waist b peninsula for rattlesnakes de wearing a whke couai and a deep streams in the middle of the uca nnuiug a nunc w aim night he insists he wouldnt trade it for anything else at double the morgue and xoahs ark all tossed it the reason is that his business is together into one twoacre unit his premises can best be describ- tie and built up a coasttocoast ed as a zoo a fish hatchery a business museum an embalming parlor the- i think 1 could do it but im in to canadian high schools crayfish insects salamanders and fish i fully labelled jars two rooms in his basement are lined with hundreds of jars on earthworms all in care- of preser j- improve the teaching of biology in schools and here he shrugs boyishly well im in it because its fun i dont know any other job that would let me spend most of my time running around through the woods and marshes go with trover on a collecting safari and every blade of grass and i iiiiiv laoeueo jars oi intstrriuiy t i fluid i lifted the top from a barrel p w pond becomes a fasctnat- s it was threequarters full of clams mg world swarm ng with a life that is as foreign as mars to the average man with you is frank fog trovers man friday and the expedition begins with a tooth- shaking ride across backcountry roads the truck stops suddenly at a roadside culvert as it terminates more than the means of a livelihood to this modest softspeaking chap who looks like a schoolboy and i talks like a college professor histcal fruitcellar shelves but the work is a crusade troyers main i preserved fruits at a closer customers are the teachers of vft 1e f biology in and universities he cans salamanders it is this situation that trover is striving to correct r got a quick in a solution of formaldehyde sample of the results when i sat in ther0 were several other barrels his office a few weeks ago as he m wooden buckets i left the tops hurried through his mornings mail t alone before setting out on a frog hunting i ooo dried uiis expedition he handed me what he 0n the second floor 1 was ushered explained was a typical order from imo the insect 1oom stored to one of the toronto collegiates i capacity with glasstopped travs r this is what i read 25 preserved containing dried specimens of on l l fi earthworms for student dissection brightly tinted butterflies mi nat aie tnose nsn lioy one dozen preserved dragonflies moths and hundreds of beetle for class study of external features flies ranging from mites of pin- squash bug eggs in a vial of pre- point size to waterbugs three inches serving fluid to round out the long collegiates collection of insect eggs im not sure how many insects i a monarch butterfly caterpillar the have in stock now trover said collegiates present specimen was probably around 20000 ill have damaged last year a mounted to add many this summer but when female crayfish carrying eggs a i fill the fall orders ill use a lot of collection of six mounted insects them maybe almost half showing protective coloration three next we went out to a double dozen live earthworms a half- garage one room contained several dozen live crayfish one dozen dozen glass aquariums about one dragonfly nymphs two live mtlli- foot square filled with live newts pedes and a bottle of mosquito salamanders turtles and numerous larvae and pupae all to be reared varieties of tadpoles the other in the school laboratory for the room had four large metal tanks observation of life habits a culture two of them swarmed with min- of small white earthworms to be nows a third was a squirming mass raised at the school as aquarium of frogs the fourth was empty food a unit of microscopic water there are alout 400 frogs there andj and asks ana parks mm supply ltd branch store auto wreckers at r stop 9vi yonge street willowdale all kinds of new and used parts frigidaire refrigerators electric ranges connor washing machines er suokers says frank fog replies troyer theyre swimming too high off the bottom most of them are chub but there are three or four blacknosed dace amongst them and one rainbow darter you look but strain your eyes as you may you see only a few darting movements along the stream bed movements which to your unprac- ticed eye might be anything from tadpoles to sea serpents troyer and fog whip out a seine net and a minute later the truck will be ixmneing on again the score for the first stop 12 chub four black- nosed dace and one rainbow darter war among insects two months later these fish will be bumping their noses against the glass sides of school aquariums tanks and when the biology teacher i talks about blacknosed dace and j rainbow darters his class will know from personal observation what teacher is talking about your next stop is beside a tree which has several branches denuded of leaves by caterpillars whitemarked tussock moth troyer announces as he shows you some of the vividly colored red black and white caterpillars but ichneumon flies are killing them off pretty fast then through troyers eyes you are treated to a newsreel picture of ruthless war in the midget world of insects there are many species of ichneumon flies which live as para sites on the larvae of other insects he says they are natures shock troops without them caterpillars would become so numerous in a year or two there wouldnt lie a green leaf left anywhere the flies j lay their tiny white eggs on the backs of the tussock moth cater pillars nature works fast and the eggs hatch within a few hours then the ichneumon larvae some times 15 of them on a single cater pillar start burrowing into the moth iookthe ctoth being damp dried and no one touched e ben0ix home laundry demonstrations saturday evenings and by appointment stouffyille radio electric norm farr proprietor phone 3i as a nature camp leader and natural science speaker troyer tries to save some time each summer to spend instructing teachers at sum mer nature schools and he is a frequent leader of springtime nature hikes around toronto dur ing the fall and winter he is a popu lar speaker rarely turning down an engagement when it is a group of teachers that desire his services troyers familiarity with goings on in the insect kingdom has sos calls from odd places last year a toronto textile firm develop ed a material which they hoped would be repellent to clothes moths and carpet beetle larvae but they werent sure troyer provided them with a few hundred ravenous cloth- eating insect larvae superintended tests for several weeks and finally assured them thatethe new textile was as good as advance hopes had envisioned it to be chasing rattlers another firm was testing a new insect repellent containing ddt the tests bogged down when they ran out of mosquitoes and flies troyer collected eggs and larvae from ponds and reared them several thousand mosquitoes in afew days if those skeeters had ever gotten loose when i was driving through toronto to deliver them the citizens would have thought that a new kind of bacterial war had hit them he says a lot of little critters live under logs he will explain you find newts salamanders snakes and all manner of insects that way once i rolled over a log and saw what appeared to be two large garter snakes underneath i grabbed the tail of one and the head of the other has to be done at night for it is net and a stepladder the police then that they are most active feed- arrived and had a firm grip on me ing and in darkness they are easier the net and the ladder before i had to catch but troyers biggest head- 1 been there three minutes half a ache on these midnight jaunts is not dozen different credentials and half finding his way in the dark it is an hour of arguing failed to cqn- explaining his queer mission to them that i was collecting police officers who usually turn up only the storekeepers moths frn- just in time to frighten away the ally i had to telephone the principal nights rarest specimen i disillusioned a dozen different rookie cops around toronto at various times during the war when i convinced them that i wasnt out blowing up munition plants troy er says two oclock one morning after i had beenatching newts and mud puppies in grenadier pond 1 came back to where i had left my truck in high park to find of one of the collegiates before they turned me loose remember when canadas hand was forced by united states officials because of a claim that too many box cars were in this country well now the shoo is on the other foot and canada has been forced to two demand that us return 5000 box police cruisers and half a dozen cars to canadian lines to haul grain f5 shrts ar they western canada to the head of had pulled out the seat taken off larvae in three or four yaysthe b when i picked them up i dis parasite larvae are full grown and the moth caterpillar with much of his innards eaten out is dead they spin their cocoons and six days later emerge as adult ichneumon flies thus in two weeks there is another generation all ready to wage war on the tussock moth caterpillars that escaped the first generation of parasites but it isnt always easy pickings for the ichneumon flies because j they have parasites tootroyer con- tinues you know the verse big fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite em little fleas have i lesser fleas and so infinitum it applies here when ichneumon flies have just alxwt wiped out the tus sock moth secondary parasites in he form of a smaller species of fly appear and start wiping out the ichneumon flies then there is a tertiary parasite which preys on the secondary ones there might oven be a fourth parasite in the chain covered it was all the same snake he was so inches long the biggest garter snake ever officially recorded for canada or the united states a garter snake 30 inches long is regarded as a big one the 50incher is still alive at the royal ontario museum of zoology in toronto ive made three or four rattle snake collecting trips to bruce peninsula and ive caught a couple of dozen rattlers by hand he says telling it casually the rattler you know is overrated after you be come experienced and know their habits they are not much more vicious to tangle with than a honey bee troyers only equipment when he goes rattlesnake hunting is a heavy stick and a pair of padded leather gloves to protect his hands when troyer and mr rattlesnake meet he drops the stick across the snake and then slowly moves the lick up along the rattlers body the engine cover and were starting to tear down the motor looking for a supercharger because they sus pected me of running drugs or liquor i told them my business but they werent in any hurry to believe me then i showed them the nights catch mud puppies look like lizards but they have exterior gills similar to fish one of the con stables glanced into my collecting pail and shouted look the guys been catching fish with legs they decided i was as queer and harm less as the mud puppy but it took me and one of the officers 15 minutes to get the truck motor back in shape again it required a great deal more explaining to clear himself when two cruiser officers spotted troyer late one night with a ladder up to the secondfloor window of a north toronto store there are a couple of lights up there that attract large number of moths he relates i went out collecting with a butterfly the lakes before the freezeup farrs elevator clauemont phone ites 381 fairs elevator clarcmont office 38w robert millar brougham special large coke at old price 1500 per ton when feed is expensive it is more necessary to cull your hens often dont keep boarders master laying mash is proven maple leaf feeds sec us about grain prices roofing and insulation rolled and insulated siding bc shingles more money stouffville motors andy forson stouflvlllc ontario itingwood ontario art staley goodwood ontario but if there is i dont believe anyi until its head is pinned against the one has ever discovered it ground then the serpent can safely before moving on trover collects be grasped just behind its head and a few dozen of the caterpillars j transferred alive and uninjured to which have minute ichneumon fly a carrying cage eggs on their backs he will use caught with the goods them in a demonstration series of ive never been bitten by a mounted insects which will illus- rattlesnake and i dont believe id rate for high school and university worry very much if i were troyer students how the parasite war is says xo one has officially been waged on the imtle fronts of the proven to have died from the bite insect kingdom of our ontario species of rattle- kibhit heal snake a rattler bite should be along about now vou will be regarded as serious but it is far looking more closely at this slim from critical for our massasaga fivefootseven supercharge of rattlesnake is so small that it energy with the boyish brush cut possesses only a small amount of and the encyclopediac mind andj venom and its fangs are too short jvou will begin to undertand too i to rentirate very deeply i j why despite his vouth he is sought mc collecting of aquatic animals j if you have good heavy wellfatted chickens or capons send them to pickering farms at whitby ontario and you will have more money to take home we sell direct to the consumer and can afford to pay you a higher price for your good chickens and capons live chickens u live capons u 30c lb 33c lb pickering farms limited whitby 336 night or day whitby ontario