| Hello Children,
This week an article about smoking caught my eye. What was so scary
about it was that it said that more and more children are beginning to
smoke. Although most of you may have not even thought of smoking, its good
to be aware of its dangers.
Some of your fathers, uncles and friends may smoke and the sight
may not be anything new to you. You might even believe that its quite harmless.
But smoking can be very bad for your health. It's dangerous because it's
very slow in destroying your immune system. Most smokers end up getting
cancer and they find that its too late for medical help.
So as you grow older, someone one day might offer you a cigarette.
They'll tell you that its cool to smoke. But keep in mind its much better
to have the courage to say No!
Until next week
Aunty Sunshine
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To My Mother
You loved me from the start of my life
And you know mom I'll love you till the end of my life
You love me for what I am
You didn't expect me to be what I couldn't.
When I am feeling blue
You always gave me a clue
How to be happy
How to be strong.
Sometimes you scold me
Sometimes you punish me
Sometimes I thought that you don't love me
But now I know you did it because you love me.
You showed me the right path
You taught me how to handle my life
You made lot of changes in my life
For that mom I am thanking you forever.
Chethika Karunaratne,
Ave Maria Convent,
Negombo.
'Reading habit should be developed in school children'
'Reading maketh a full man.' it is a very important and useful statment.
Reading will help children in their studies. For example, in our books
there are reading lessons and grammar lessons. In small classes we learn
to read. It is very important for our studies. Reading will improve children's
knowledge. They can learn Economics, Logic, Philosophy, Languages and various
subjects. Reading also helps children to know things that happen around
the world.
Children lack opportunities to read. They have extra curricular activities
after school. So they don't have the time to do their home work as they
are tired. Books are also very expensive. That is one reason for the lack
of interest in reading. Some children prefer to watch educational programmes
on Television.
Dinusha Rathnayake,
K/Kingswood College,
Kandy.
Sri Lanka
On the world map the island hangs like a teardrop over the Indian Ocean.
In reality this torpical isle spreads 435 Kms from north to south and at
its widest point spreads to 225 kms econmpassing an area of 65,600 sq Kms.
The island's unique diversity is seen by the fact that within a few miles
of travel by road, the climate, and the environs change, to afford a rewarding
experience of diversity within a relatively small area. Sri Lanka's population
of little over 18 million comprises of 73.9% Sinhalese, 12.7% Sri Lankan
Tamils, 7.5% Sri LankanMoors, 5.5% Indian Tamils and others inclusive of
Burghers 0.7%.
T.Rajkumar,
Kandy.
The Volcano
A volcano may sleep for a long time. Sometimes centuies with nothig
but a faint cloud of somke over the summit. But under the ground the rumbling
and booming grow louder. Animals and birds flee, sensing the approaching
disaster.
A column of black somke and ashes pour out of the core stones and a
stream of molten rock called lava are ejected.
When it cools the lava covers the ground with a coat of rock. Then the
mountain goes to sleep again.
Anushka Priyadarshani Samarakkody,
Telijjawila Central College,
Matara
Stamp News 25
Featuring our wild life
Some of the most colourful birds and beasts are found in the jungles
of Sri Lanka. A number of National Parks maintained by the government have
become popular places to see and enjoy wild life. The oldest and the most
popular of these is the Ruhunu National Park situated in the south east
coast of Sri Lanka and is popularly known as Yala Park. Wilpattu in the
north centre of the country is almost twice as large as Yala but is closed
for visitors due to the present war situation.
The country's wild life was the subject of four stamps issued on May
11, 1970. The four definitive stamps depicted four animals - slender loris,
spotted or axis deer, wild buffalo and leopard.
The slender loris (Unahapuluwa in Sinhala) featured in the 15 cent stamp
is a strictly tree living mammal which, because of its nocturnal habits,
is seldom seen in day-time. One of the four varieties of monkeys in Sri
Lanka, it feeds largely on insects and occasionally on small birds and
ripe berries. It is distributed throughout the island.
The 50 cent stamp features the spotted deer (Tith Muwa), considered
the most beautiful deer in the whole world with white pearly spots standing
out vividly on glossy brown fur. It is found throughout the dry zone. It
needs protection because it is avidly sought after for its flesh. The white
form of the animal seen on the stamp is an uncommon mutation caught by
the cameraman in one of the national parks. Spotted deer feed entirely
on grasses, foliage and fallen ripe fruit. The males bear antlers which
are shed annually.
The leopard (Kotiya) seen on the Rs. 1 stamp is the prince among Sri
Lankan mammals being the largest representative of the cat family in the
country. It is widely distributed from the highest elevations to the hottest
dry zone forests. On account of the demand for its skin especially in the
foreign markets, the leopard is the victim of organised poaching. The leopard
is carnivorous and partly arboreal. Its sense of hearing is said to be
well developed but depends more on eye sight when hunting. Its sense of
smell is said to be very poor.
The Rs. 5 stamp features the wild buffalo (Kulu Meema), a formidable
animal unpredictable when it is met in the jungle. The true wild form is
rare today due to promiscuous breeding with domesticated buffaloes which
stray into their midst. The animal is protected to a great extent wherever
it is found by the imposition of laws, which carry severe penalties for
their infringement.
Wild life is protected in Sri Lanka by allocating specified areas for
fauna and flora and by the enforcement of laws through legislative enactments.
The Wild Life Protection Society, a voluntary organisation is actively
engaged in the conservation of forests and protection of wild life in the
country. The century old Society has developed from the original Ceylon
Game Protection Society which only had a handful of members unlike the
Wild Life Society which boasts of a very large membership.
 What
is an arthropod?
The arthropods are invertebrates that have jointed legs and usually
a hard outer skeleton. The name Arthropoda comes from the Greek arthron,
meaning joint, and podos, foot. More species of arthropods have been described
than all other kinds of animals put together. In fact, over 75 per cent
of the known animals, both vertebrate and invertebrate, belong to the phylum
Arthropoda, and of these a further 75 per cent are insects.
The major classes of arthropods are the Crustacea, including crayfish,
lobsters, shrimps, crabs, water-fleas, woodlice and barnacles; the Chilopoda
or centipedes; the Diplopoda or millipedes; the Arachnida, including spiders,
harvestmen, scorpions, mites and ticks; and the Insecta, including dragonflies,
mayflies, grasshoppers, cockroaches, butterflies, bees, wasps, ants, flies
and beetles. The insects are the largest class and they contain about 750,000
species, followed by the arachnids with about 60,000 species and the centipedes
and millipedes together, a mere 11,000 species.
Missing link
Arthropods have evolved from marine segmented worms. The animal that
comes closer than any other to being the "missing link" between
the worms and the arthropods is Peripatus, the sole representative of the
phylum Onychophora. Peripatus is a many-legged caterpillar-like creature
about eight centimetres in length which is found mainly in the Southern
Hemisphere. It is usually nocturnal and likes moist places under logs in
tropical forests.
The Arthropoda are a very ancient group of animals. At the beginning
of the Cambrian Period (500 million years ago) there were three well-established
classes: trilobites, crustaceans and arachnids. The dominant class was
the trilobites which make up over half the fossils known from this period
and are the most important group of fossil arthropods. They were at their
most numerous in the Ordovician Period (400 million years ago), but finally
died out in the Permian (220 million years ago). Their decline and final
extinction was probably brought about by the giant Ordovician cephalopods
(squids and octopuses) and the Devonian fishes, 320 million years ago.
The name trilobite refers to the fact that the dorsal surface of the body
is divided into three lobes. The trilobites probably gave rise to no other
arthropod groups, but they seem to be most closely related to the Crustacea.
Ancestors
Ancestors of the more primitive crustaceans, like the fairy-shrimps,
are well represented in lower Cambrian rocks, but the larger crustaceans,
such as lobsters and crabs, do not appear until Jurassic times (150 million
years ago).
Eurypterus, a fossil arachnid and the ancestor of the present-day horse-shoe
or king-crabs, Limulus, occurred in the sea from the Cambrian to Permian
Periods, that is from 500 to 220 million years ago. Limulus itself has
changed little since Triassic times (190 million years ago). Eurypterus
is the largest known arthropod and at its peak of development it attained
a length of three metres.
Although 750,000 species of living insects have been described, only
a few thousand fossil species have been found. Many of these were preserved
in accumulations of dripping resin over long periods. The resin eventually
became fossilized into amber, thus preserving the insect or spider. All
of the early insects are now extinct.
The arthropod body-plan is a specialization of the segmented body-plan
of annelid worms. The outer layer, or cuticle, serves as a protective armour.
Biting jaws, piercing beaks, grinding surfaces, sound-producing organs,
walking legs, pincers, wings and many other structures, are made from the
cuticle. It is due partly to this hard cuticle that the arthropods have
been so very successful. This hard surface is called an exoskeleton, and
it is to this that arthropods owe their ability to live on land, for it
provides a relatively impermeable outer covering to prevent drying of the
watery tissues within, and also provides a rigid framework to support the
soft tissues. This exoskeleton enables arthropods to exploit the land with
practically no serious competition from the other invertebrate groups,
most of which are largely aquatic.
There is no doubt that the arthropods are the most successful of all
the animal groups. They have the largest number of species and individuals,
and occupy the widest stretches of territory and the greatest variety of
habitats. In the oceans, minute crustaceans form the major part of the
food chains of whales and the larger fishes. Some arthropods are beneficial
to man: crabs and lobsters providing food; bees providing honey, and silkworms
(the larvae of silkmoths) providing silk. Others do untold damage, destroying
crops, undermining wooden buildings, and transmitting diseases. Where they
do not exclude him altogether, arthropods are man's chief competitor for
food and shelter.
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