Deep Jungle

DEEP JUNGLE is an exploration of the most alien and feared habitat on Earth. Starting with man's earliest recorded adventures, Fred Pearce journeys high into the canopy - home to two-thirds of all the creatures on our planet, many of whom never come down to earth. During his travels he encounters all manner of fantastic flora and fauna, including a frog that can glide from tree to tree, a spider that can drag live chickens into its burrow and a flower that smells of decaying flesh. It is in the jungle that Pearce discovers secrets about how evolution works, the intricate links that connect us all, and maybe even clues to where humans came from - here is the key to our future foods and medicines, our climate and our understanding of how life works. At the start of a new millennium Pearce asks why we continue to waste precious time - and billions of dollars - looking for signs of life elsewhere in our universe when the greatest range of life-forms that have ever existed lies right here on our doorstep. Today environmentalists say we are on the verge of destroying the last rainforests, and with them the planet's evolutionary crucible, and maybe even its ability to maintain life on Earth. But nature has a way of getting its own back. The Mayans and the people of Angkor went too far in manipulating nature and paid the ultimate price. Their civilisations died and the jungle returned. Nature reclaimed it's own and it may do so again ...

Investigates the rain forests and jungles of the world by following past and present explorers and scientists in their travels, and relates the promise these areas hold and the threats they face.

With the growth of interest in folklore, it becomes increasingly evident that the presentation of a collection needs some rationale more than the fact that traditional materials have been collected and properly annotated. Much has been gathered and is now accessible through journals, archives, and lists. If a corpus of lore is not presented in some way, which bears new light on the process of word-of-mouth transmission, on traditional forms or expressions, or on the group among whom the lore was encountered, there is little reason to present it to the public. This work represents an attempt to present a body of folklore collected among one small group of Black Americans in a neighborhood in South Philadelphia. The author's approach toward collection and presentation has been intensive. He has tried to collect "in depth," and to recreate in his presentation the social background in which the lore was found, and to relate the lore with the life and the values of the group. Abraham's work is a departure from any past methods of analyzing folklore, and therefore a description of the author's point of view and his method will be given first. The majority of this work was written before his methodology was actually formulated. However throughout the project û the object was to illuminate as fully as possible the lore of one small group of African Americans from urban Philadelphia. The methodology, which developed, did so because of this objective more than anything else. Though the formulation of this theory may seem ex post facto, it is included because it clarified much during the rewritings of this book, and more importantly, because it will clarify many matters for the lay reader and for the professional folklorist.

Reader beware--you choose the scare! GIVE YOURSELF GOOSEBUMPS! You're headed to a South American jungle with your nature-study class. Everything seems pretty cool at first, but then you start to get bored. Where's the beach? Where's the excitement?So you and your friend decide to do a little exploring on your own. That's when you see something so freaky, all you want to do is get out of there! If you run screaming down one trail you'll end up at a waterfall with a creepy underground cave. If you choose the other trail you'll eat some fruit that turns you into a crazy-looking sea monster. Will you get back to normal before things start to get really fish?!!The choice is yours in this scary GOOSEBUMPS adventure that's packed with over 20 super-spooky endings!

After being tricked into joining the circus, an arrogant lion escapes and returns to the jungle where he lives peacefully with the animals he used to terrorize.