Ant ways

Title

Ant ways

Creator

Aunt Julia

Language

English

Year

1937

Subject

Ants.

Ant colonies.

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Abstract

(Continued from the December Issue)

A community is founded by an ant queen that is about to lay eggs. After some weeks of rest, she lays a small clutch of eggs, and slowly develop into small worker ants. After several months workers are ready to work, creep out of the nest, and also gather food for the queen.

Fulltext

BB THE YOUNG CITIZEN January, 1937 THIS EARTH OF OURS THE WEATHER Find out how our earth behaves. Do you notice that sometimes you are good and pleasant but sometimes you are' cross and naughty? In the same way, the earth is sometimes sunny while at other times it is cloudy or stormy. This behavior of the earth is usually spoken of as the weather. When it is calm and neither too warm nor too cold. we say that. the weather is fine. When it i~ rainy or stormy, we say that the weather is bad. When speaking of the weather in a l!:er.cral way which is f<;>und in an entire country. the word climate is used. We say that the climate in northern Russia is cold and that in central Africa hot. When we read a story or look at a movie, chcn· are people who take different part~ in the st0ry. These persons are called characters. In the story of weather, there are certain characters each playing .1 ~ifferent part. There are at least four important characters in the weather movie. They are the sun, earth. air, and water. Dust is a less important character. The sun gives the earth all the heat it needs. The sun's rays have. the greatest power when they arc directly over a certain point. The heat at such time goes farther into the earth and then thrown off again into the air with great intensity. When the rays of the sun strike the earth slantingly. th<'y have much less force. ANT WAYS (Con11nued From the December issue) You read in last month's article that ants live. in very big families called colonies. A colony, composed of thousands of individuals, lives in a nest. T he nest is built in light soil just below the surface of the ground. It consists of many little cooms connected by a network of tunnels, which are just like the corridors of a large building. · A community is founded by a queen that is about to lay eggs. As soon as sh~ decides to make her home, she takes off her wings. She fears that, with wings, she might be tempted to leave the nest. Rid of her wings, she shuts herself up in a little chamber, meanwhile the eggs in her body are ripening. After some weeks of rest, she lays. a small clutch of eggs. When the eggs hatch into grubs. she feeds them with her saliva. Because of lack of nourishment. thes~ grubs develop slowly into small worker ants. For about seven months. the· queen takes no food herself and feeds the first brood from her own body. As soon as the workers are ready to work they creep out of the nest and gather food for the queen. It is now her time to rest and live as a true queen. The little workers enlargE> the nest by building new chambers and digging new tunnels. T hey also attend to all the needs of the queen. The queen now does nothing but lay eggs. When resting, she is petted by the workers and lickeci by them with their feelers. When she takes a walk in the galleries. she is escorted by her subjects. As she walks. sht- lays her tiny white ~ggs. The· workers The work of the sun is affected by the earth itself. The earth is not always thz same at different times and ·at different places. The shape of the earth, its movements around the sun, and the differences in elevations of its surface all cause differences in climate in different parts of the earth. Jamw1·u, 1937 · THE YOUNG CITIZEN 339 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ TRUE STORIES I ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ., _ pick up the· eggs and place them in little chambers. Among the workers are nurses. These nurses look after the eggs protecting them from bacteria by licking them with saliva every day. They sort the little ant babies or grubs according to size and place them in different chambers. When a chamber becomes too cool or too warm, the nurses carry the baby ants to other chaml:/ers. The babies are fed on liquid food thrown out from the nurses' stomach. They are also washed by the nurses just as little kittens are washed-by licking. (Read some more interesting facts about ants in the February number of "The Young Citizen.") STUDY TEST ON ANT WAYS 1. Choose the best answer: a. How many ants are there m a colony? (ten. hundreds, a few, thousands) b. How many rooms are there in a nest? (a big room, a hall. many little .rooms) c. Who builds the colony? (a king. a worker, a queen) d. What does the queen do when she is ready to start a colony? walks about on the ground flies about in the open air removes her wings and stays m the nest e. Who takes care of the first group of baby ants? (the king. the queen. the worker). f. How long does the queen do her work all alone? (a month. a week. a year. seven months). g. Read paragraphs J and 4 again and tell three things that the workers do for the queen. e. Tell three things that the nurses do. Check your' answers by rereading the story. SUNDAY ((..'ontinue.<I frtnn 7mge .J37) was pictured as traveling by day in a ship across the waters of the sky and returning during the night through the kingdom of the dead. To the Egyptians, Ra was a symbol of life. death. and a new birth. In India the sun was worshipped as the god Agni. who rode in a shining chariot drawn by blood-red ~orses. He was golden-haired and had a double face. seven tongues. and seven arms. PLANTS ABOUT US HOW SEEDS ARE SCATTERED In last month's. article, you read about the tricks performed by flowers to attract visitors like bees. butterflies. and moths. These insects help the flowers in forming seeds. The seeds. in turn. help the plant grow in great numbers and in different places. Let us see how th~ seeds perform their work. The seeds are kept in the fruit- Men and animals eat the flesh of the fruit and throw away the seeds. These. seeds grow into plants away from the mother plant. Some seeds grow in pods. Sitao. batao, patani. cacawate keep their seeds in pods. When dry. the pods burst open and scatter the seeds. Name some more plants thar keep their seeds in pods. Many plants grow in the water or close to streams. The ripe seeds are carried by the water to distant places. Seeds of American plants in this way reach the coast of Europe. The coconut. scatters its seed in this way. Name other plants the seeds of which are scattered by water. Many plants are helped by the wirid in scauering seeds. Such seeds have feathers or wings. They are carried by the wind very far and dropped on the ground. Do you know the amor seco? clothes when you brush against it. It sticks on your ·When you reach home you pull t.he fruit and throw it away. do you think will happen to it? What Below is a list of plants. Group them under separate headings according to the way in which their seeds are scattered. Men and Animals· Water \Vind guava. acacia. mangrove. kapok. nipa. coconut. kulot kulutan. duhat. bignay. cotton. santol. talahib.

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