Homes in the Animal Kingdom

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Part of The Young Citizen: The Magazine for Young People

Title: Homes in the Animal Kingdom
Year: 1937
Rights
Fulltext: 282 THE YOUNG CITIZEN October, I rJJ; ELEMENTARY SCIENCE SECTION THIS EARTH OF OURS HOMES IN THE ANIMAL EARTHQUAKES Are you still aSking your friends and relatives what they did during the earthquake of August 20? You can not readily forget your fright that night, or the many funny and pathetic actions you saw around you. You must have thought it was the end of the world. And th.! next day you must have asked for and heard different explanations of earthquakes. Let us have some facts abcuc earthquakes. An earthqtlake is a trembling of the earth's surface due to causes not conn~cted with human activities. Earthquakes differ much in strength. Some are so gentle as scarcely to be felt; oth~r.s are so violent that buildings are overthrown. holes known as crevasses are opened in the surface of the land and masses of rock are loosened from cliffs and thrown into the valleys below. Earthquakes sometimes disturb the waters of the sea, causing destructive sea waves: Danger from earthquakes comes largely from the fall of buildings and from the great sea waves. Earthquakes are perhaps most common in volcanic regions, though not confined to them. Earthquakes are probably due to many causes. It is very interesting to hear what the old people have to say about their causes. Tell your classmates some of these explanations you have heard from your neighbors and acquaintances. Some small earthquakes are perhaps due to the falling in of the roofs of underground caves. Earthquakes accompany strong· volcanic eruptions. Great landslides and avalanches or the movement of ice on mountain sides may also cause earthquakes. But the principal cause is the slipping of one great body of rock past another. This is known as faulting. The changes in the surface of the land made by earthquakes are many. Springs are disturbed, old ones stop flowing and new ones appear. Some earthquakes cause landslides. From some holes in the earth escape bad-smelling gases. Earthquake waves destroy animals and fishes of rivers, bays, <md even of the ocean. (Plerue turn to page 294) . KINGDOM THE ROOM OF A MASON WASP Some men are called masons. When masons · build, they use different materials from those that carpenters use. Do you know what masons 'build with? They are workers in stone and bricks. Now, some of the little creatures of nature build their homes of stone and some in day. Have you never found or seen a little clay jug 01 jar on the branch of a tree or just outside vcur' window at home? When you go home today, try and look for one. If you should watch it daily, perhaps you will be able to see a queer little creature alight near the jug. She has a very, very slender, pinched-looking waist; but you must not blame her for that, because she is a kind of wasp and grows tha~ way naturally. She walks with a restless shake of her wings to the open jug and drops in something that she brought in her mouth. Then with a jerky flirt of her wings she flies away without even noticing you. Before long she is back again, and this time if you look sharply and quickly you will see that it is a little green caterpillar that she drops into the jug. The caterpillar is limp and it does (Plerue tuni to page 289) October, 1937 THE ROOM OF A (Cantin ued lrom page 280) not squirm. It does not crawl out of the jug while the wasp is away hunting, for more. She brings another and another and another, until the jug is full of limp caterpillars. The next time the Wlsp comes she has something different in her mouth. It is a ball of clay, and with it she plugs the mouth of the jug very smoothly and ,nicely. The little potter has now finished the jug that she made and filled and sealed without any help. She will not come back to it again. The mother wasp has no need of her finished jug, but there is something inside that THE YOUNG CITIZEN has use for the canned meat that has been packed away. Before she sealed the jug, the mother insect put in an egg. When tho! egg hatched, the baby wasp would have plenty of food to eat, and there is nothing that would agree with it so well as tiny caterpillars. As this kind of young wasp is a soft, helpless, footless little thing (much like a baby hornet or a bee) it cannot catch food for itself. It does not need to try. There is enough in the jug. About twelve days later a little hole will be broken .in on one side of the jug and out will come a queer. little slenderwaisted creature' that 'with an uneasy lift of her tiny wings KIKO'S ADVENTURES 289 USES OF THE NIPA (Continued from page 283) the nipa flower stalk yields a fine flow of juice. This is collected by the thousand of liters. distilled into alcQhol. made into vinegar or sugar, or allowed to ferment to become tuba. So you see how useful a plant nipa is. It will keep your house dry, sweep yo~r floors. feed your fires and warm the heart. Like the bamboo, mother nature seems to have especially provided the nipa plant for people like us who live in the tropics. Can you add to the many uses of the nipa that you have heard about today? flies to the window, out into the sunshine.