10th January 1999

Now that all of you have started school and met new friends it must be great. You must be telling them what you did during the holidays. Well 10 days of the new year have gone by and the cricket season has started.

The Sri Lankans have gone to Australia to play 18 one -day matches, but at the moment they are not doing so good. Hope they'll soon be playing a good game for you to enjoy. 

With all the excitement around don't forget your studies. This year you have grown up a bit more and more responsibilities lie on your shoulders. So do a lot more work and study a bit harder than last year. Don't let excitement and fun distract you.

Until next time
Aunty Sunshine

• Greatest sister
• Columbus facts
• What I like to do most
• Playing as a team
• Leaders are honoured - Stamp News 49
• The laughing cow and children
• Insect eaters - Nature World

Greatest sister

You are from the Eastern
Province now in Colombo
to acquire your skills,
in education.
You are the greatest sister,
I have met
full of kindness
and beauty.
You are attractive,
with a set of milk-white teeth

With your blue eyes,
you glance at me
as you manage your pen,
to write to me.
You are absolutely perfect.

W. M. C. S. B. Weerakoon
Ananda College - Colombo

Columbus facts

Continued from last week

Foreign exchange

When Columbus returned to Europe after his first voyage, he carried cotton, spices, parrots in cages, gold and other wonders of the New World. In 1493, he sailed back to the Americas. His 17 ships brought horses, pigs, fruit trees and other plants and animals from Europe. 

On later trips to North America he carried more European goods. So did later explorers, who introduced to the New World other livestock and many grains, vegetables and fruits.

Through this exchange pineapples made their way eastward and onions travelled westward. Europe got tomatoes, potatoes and corn; the Americas got cattle, sheep and chicken. Africans and Asians took to peanuts; Americans welcomed wheat and sugarcane, peaches and pears. 

Ideas, customs, languages - all travelled the Atlantic, too. So did diseases, which often wiped out entire Native American populations. For good and bad the great exchange was under way, and it remade two worlds.

Mystery? 

Columbus died in 1506 and was buried in Valladolid, Spain. That's where facts end and a mystery begins. Later his body was supposedly moved to the Spanish city of Seville. From there it is said to have travelled again. His remains were taken across the Atlantic to the Cathedral in Santo Domingo, in what is now the Dominican Republic. 

The bones, then, were supposedly moved a third and a fourth time - to Havana in Cuba, then back to Seville. But many people say that someone else's remains were moved instead, and that Columbus still lies in the tomb in Santo Domingo. 

To add to the confusion, a place in Genoa, Italy, has an urn that - according to tradition - contains the ashes of Columbus!

Family tree

What a family tree! Cristobal Colon XX traces his family history directly back to - you guessed it - Christopher Columbus. An officer of the Spanish Navy, he lives in Madrid, Spain, with his wife and two sons. 

"I must have inherited my love of the sea," he says. Cristobal XX also inherited the honorary title given to his famous ancestor. He is Admiral of the Ocean Sea. 

What I like to do most

If someone asks me, "What do you like to do most?" I'd probably say a whole lot of things which would be hard to make out. When you come to think of it, don't you agree that there are a lot of things in different fields which would be interesting to do? Frankly, you could be attracted to some incredible things. Each special in its own way.

When I re-consider the matter, it happens that I jump to a lot of conclusions. I just picture myself doing all kinds of things. I like to fool around with my friends, yes, but there are other things that seem impossible to explain, to describe.

I like to have the maximum fun one can have. I'm a pretty good student too. I like going to school and I even like exams. I'm into studying most of the time. I like music, dance and drama very much. English songs are my favourite. I get a fantastic feeling when I do Kandyan dancing. It doesn't feel hard at all. I love playing the organ too. To tell you the truth, I can even watch T. V. all day!

But that isn't exactly my kind of thing either. That's not what I call maximum fun. Whoops! I almost forgot my most favourite thing. 

I'm a terrible bookworm. I'm totally addicted to books. Sinhala and English both. When I settle down with a book I can read on and on and it never seems to end. I love mysteries and historical stories. Stories on modern lifestyles and special people are refreshing too.

Just like reading, I love another thing. Making up a story and writing it down on paper feel like heaven. Imagining a different world with strange characters and fun- filled plots is what I call a story. I'd like to be a journalist one day.

So after a lot of hard thinking, I'm almost sure I found the ideal thing for me. Settling down near my writing table and travelling to my imaginative world with a pen and paper is just my type of thing. I'm positive that would be the answer to a certain simple question I asked earlier.

Charya Wickramasinghe
Visakha Vidyalaya - Colombo 5

Playing as a team

Good food, sleep and rest are important for a healthy life. Another important thing is good physical exercise. We must either work hard or do sports and games for physical exercise.

Sports keeps our body healthy and fit. Thereby we can also have a healthy mind. Football, cricket, volleyball and hockey are not one -man games. All players have to play their part well in a match. Therefore, sports helps us learn to work as a team.

Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose a match. Winning or losing is not very important, but playing by the rules and doing our duty are the most important things. 

We must learn to take victory and defeat equally. Then we can face the ups and downs in life like sportsmen.

Fiyaz Zareen
St. Mary's College - Nawalapitya

Stamp News 49

Leaders are honoured

Apart from Queen Elizabeth II, the person whose picture has appeared most on stamps this century is Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965), greatest modern British statesmen, who as Prime Minister and war leader was the architect of victory in World War II. 

Sir Winston was the subject of worldwide stamp issues after his death in 1965 and again in his centenary year (1974). It is recorded that he even appeared in cartoon form on Nazi field postcards of the Second World War. A total of 474 stamps have honoured him. The record for the largest number of different mourning stamps for one person is also held by him. Some 287 stamps and 14 miniature sheets had been issued by 73 countries within 12 months of his death in January 1965.

At the end of the 19th century, the record of the person portrayed most on stamps was held by Christopher Columbus (1451-1506), the Genoese explorer generally credited with the discovery of America. Sailing under the flag of Spain (it was Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain who agreed to finance his voyage) he sighted land in the Bahamas on 12 October1492. On 1 December 1992, Sri Lanka issued a set of four stamps to commemorate the 500th anniversary of his first voyage. The stamps featured his voyage (Re 1), first landing in the Americas (Rs 11), his ship, Santa Maria being wrecked (Rs 13) and his return to Spain when he was created an admiral and governor of the new lands discovered (Rs 15).

American Presidents have been featured on stamps since the first US stamp was issued in July 1847.The first US President, George Washington (1732-1799) along with the first US Postmaster General and father of the American Postal Service, Benjamin Franklin were portrayed in the first stamps. 

As a mark of respect to the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) considered one of greatest US Presidents, a stamp was issued 14 months after his assassination on 14 April 1865. Following the assassination of President John Kennedy (1917-1963), the youngest US President (he was 43 when he became President), many countries issued stamps to honour him. 183 stamps and 32 miniature sheets were issued by 44 countries in memory of Kennedy in the years after his assassination on 22 November 1963.

The only person to be elected four times as US President, Theodore Roosevelt (1882-1945) was an ardent stamp collector. Several US stamps featured the man who instigated much liberal legislation and led US during most of World War II.

The laughing cow and children

Atthe age of seventy seven, it has lost none of its appeal or attractiveness. It could even be said that it is a living legend, a still current myth. It is not a Hollywood star but simply the queen of the family fridge. It is known by the name of "La Vache qui rit", the laughing cow, and it would be wrong not to laugh as everything is going fine for it.

It all began with an ancient Swiss recipe for cheese-spread, combining melted Gouda and Gruyere. In 1921, Leon Bel, the son of a cheese-maker and a cheese-maker himself decided to take up this recipe and adapt it to industrial production. This is how the French laughing cow came into being on the edge of the Jura. But it was just another cheese in the land of cheeses.

Leon Bel had a good sense of judgement and his flair led him to see things on a large scale from the outset. Encouraged by his invention, as early as 1926 he built a factory which was ultra-modern for the time, in which he already produced twenty tonnes of cheese-spread a day. The master cheese-maker then asked himself a single question. What could he do to persuade housewives to buy his product? Long before the kings of marketing, Bel understood that he had to appeal to children to persuade mothers and that he had to be a hit in school playgrounds in order to get through to the parents. That was when he remembered a friend he had met during the First World War, Benjamin Rabier, who drew comic strips with animals for heroes. He asked him to decorate his packaging with the picture of a nice, familiar animal which would conjure up life and affection. With a couple of brush strokes the laughing cow came into being. A dazz1ing smile lights up the face of the animal. What's more, it enjoys being stylish and wears earrings. It certainly is noticeable. But Leon Bel did not stop there. Another innovation is that each round box contains pictures of animals, fashionable stars, etc. to be collected by those who enjoy this cheese-spread. It was the little extra that made all the difference. Leon Bel had a marvellous gift for marketing.

When he handed over the firm in 1937, Leon Bel had no worries. His son-in-law had been to the right school and applied all the in-house techniques with a lot of talent. He launched large advertising campaigns and exported La Vache qui rit to Belgium and to England where it became known as "The Laughing Cow" and to Spain where it is called "La Vaca que rie". It became a sports fan and followed the Tour de France cycling race, appearing in the stands at every stage. A radio programme for children "The laughing cow in the land of animals" was even created. Then, in the 50s, the pretty cow accompanied children to school and its smiling face could be seen on exercise-book covers, blotting paper and other school stationery.

After a slight facelift in the 60s, the drawing was simplified. The laughing cow, confident about its appearance, gambols ahead with leading sales figures. It can be seen on bill-boards and on television with a single slogan "We should all laugh at least once a day." Who could disagree with that ?

La Vache qui rit, the star product of the Bel cheese company, which today has twenty-one factories in the world, accounts for about 50% of the volume of sales and shows a growth of 6 to 7% a year. Its pals, Kiri, Bonbel and Babybel, also produced by the Bel company, have in no way hindered its rise. Today, it is taking on markets in Eastern Europe and arriving in Poland, after the United States, Morocco, Arab countries and even Vietnam. However, in the countries of the Far East, the brilliant cow comes up against a slight problem, that of bread! It needs bread to be spread on. But one can count on the laughing cow. Maybe it will find a way to export its old accomplice, Lady Bread! 

-Sylvie Bullo( Actualite en France)

Insect eaters

Many mammals feed on insects and other small animals. The mammals come from different groups, and most are small and unable to tackle larger prey. This is true of the scientific group called the Insectivora, which includes shrews, moles and hedgehogs.

Small animals

The smallest of the Insectivora are the shrews, which are sometimes mistaken for mice. But mice are rodents, which nibble their food with strong incisor teeth, while insectivores have sharp, pointed teeth like needles. The world's smallest mammal is the Etruscan shrew of the Mediterranean, which is less than five centimetres long.

Shrews have pointed snouts, which they constantly twitch as they search restlessly for food, night and day. They are constantly burning up energy, and some live little more than one year. Shrews have strong scent glands which make them taste unpleasant, so they are usually left alone by other hunters, apart from some owls. They are the most primitive of all mammals, and are very similar to the tiny mammals which existed in the age of the dinosaurs.

The elephant shrews of Africa have the most pointed snouts of all the shrews. Like the others, they hunt insects.

Shrews run about in the undergrowth, whereas moles are built for burrowing. They dig their way through the soil with their strong shovel-shaped front feet, pushing up mole hillocks above the ground, along the line of their tunnels.

Moles hunt worms and insects. They are very sensitive to vibrations and can detect the movement of worms in the soil.The golden moles live in Africa. They have attractive, shiny golden fur unlike the black coats of most other moles.

Hedgehogs come out at night and snuffle around, rooting among the leaves and soil for insects and other small animals. They move about noisily, and rely on a coat of sharp prickles for defence. The prickles are specialized hairs which harden with growth. A hedgehog curls up when disturbed, so few enemies will tackle it. However, it faces danger from traffic on the roads at night, and many get run over. The European hedgehog is one of the few mammals that hibernates.

There are hedgehogs of a different kind in South-East Asia, covered in hair instead of prickles.

Tenrecs are only found in Madagascar (Malagasy Republic), and resemble hedgehogs as they have spiny coats.

There are some midgets among the marsupials of Australia. These include the mouse possum which hunts insects larger than itself.

Eating ants

Among the large insect-eaters are the South American anteaters. The giant anteater, nearly two metres long, lives in open forest country and grassland. It has no teeth but uses its very long snout and sticky tongue to lick up termites. It uses its strong claws to tear open the ant-hills. Some dwarf anteaters live in trees and can hang on with their tails. Anteaters have only one baby at a time.

Another animal which tears open termite nests is the armadillo. It has thickened skin on its back which forms a strong, horny armour, giving it a scaly, reptilian appearance. Its few teeth are small and peg-like. Armadillos vary in size, like the anteaters. The giant armadillo measures about one and a half metres, whereas the tiny hairy armadillo is about ten centimetres long. It has a fringe of thick hair along its sides. Armadillos, like hedgehogs, curl up tightly when alarmed.

All the members of the armadillo family live in South America, and only the nine-banded armadillo extends its range north into the southern part of North America.

Pangolins live in the Old World, and are like armadillos. They are covered with a remarkable layer of scales on their heads, backs and sides, even the tail. Normal hair grows between the scales. The mouth is small and it has no teeth. Like birds, pangolins swallow stones, which help to grind up the food. The acid in the ants they eat also helps with digestion.

Some pangolins live on the ground, others in trees. The giant pangolin grows to more than two and a half metres. All are nocturnal and solitary animals.

Earth pigs

The aardvark lives in Africa — its name is Afrikaans for "earth pig". It lives in bush country south of the Sahara. It has strong claws for digging, and is an active burrower. It uses its long snout and tongue to catch and feed on termites and locusts. The aardvark is nocturnal, and its one or two young are born in a burrow.

Primate insect-eaters

A number of lower primates, or lemurs, are insect-eaters. The bush-babies of Africa come out after dark to go insect-hunting. By then many insects have gone to rest in hidden places, so the bush-baby searches by dipping its hand in cracks and holes to find a meal. In the Far East their cousins, the slow-moving lorises, are expert stalkers of insects. Both bush-babies and lorises have big eyes to see in the dark.

Among the higher primates the chimpanzee has been seen to use a stick to catch insects. It pokes the stick into an ants' nest. The ants cling to this and are pulled out and eaten.

Although classed as carnivores the badger and some bears will also eat insects. Using their powerful claws they can tear open tree stumps and fallen logs, or dig into the ground in search of grubs. Anything sweet is particularly well liked and they will break open bees' and wasps' nests for the grubs and honey.

Many bats are nocturnal insect-hunters, and take over from the swallows and swifts which hunt them by day.

Since insects are so common and widespread most mammals will eat them at some time or another, especially if their normal food is in short supply. Mice, squirrels, as well as many birds, lizards, frogs and toads, are all insect-eaters. 

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