Category Plants & Animals

          The song of the birds at dawn has given pleasure to millions of people and has been celebrated in poetry and prose for many years. The most usual explanation given in the Middle Ages was that the birds sang each day in praise of God and the beauty with which he had clothed the world. More recently, there was the feeling that the birds sang joyously to welcome the rising of the sun, which meant food, warmth and activity.

          However, scientists now think that the dawn chorus is made up of the warning signals of each bird as he re-establishes his territory for courtship, nesting and food getting is the first step in the breeding cycle and the area is defended against competing birds of the same species by a warning song, although seldom by actual fighting. A robin, incidentally, has a particularly strong sense of territory.

          African elephants have larger ears than Indian, or Asiatic, elephants because they live in hotter conditions and are bigger and more aggressive and active. The huge ears of the African elephant, sometimes three and a half feet wide, enable it to hear more acutely. When the animal charges it fans out it ears, augmenting its terrible appearance and striking fear into the heart of ay enemy.

        The ears also present a large surface for losing body-heat. Africa can elephants, which are at a disadvantage in the heat because of their large size, wave their ears to keep cool and to chase away flies. The African elephant is the biggest and noblest of land animals, reaching a height of 11 feet and a weight of nearly six tons.

        The Asiatic elephant is smaller. It inhabits the forests of South-east Asia from India to Ceylon and Borneo. It does not like heat and seeks the deep shade of the forest.

            A chameleon will change color when it senses danger. This remarkable member of family can change color to match its background or, at least to become almost unrecognizable.

            The ranges of color and patterns of the various species differ widely, but most chameleons can become yellow or cream, green or dark brown. They can also adapt spots either dark or light depending on the color of the ground.

            Apart from its response to danger, the chameleon will change color according to the light and temperature. This mechanism is controlled from the nervous system and involves the dispersion or concentration of color pigments in the creature’s skin.

          Group of elephants have been found buried together both in Africa and Asia. The nearness of the animals to each other may be no more than a coincidence. The areas may be no more than sites, since elevated and dried, where elephants have been drowned in   bags or while crossing river.

           However, many people will argue that old elephants, when their end is near, resort to their legendary “graveyards”. The discovery of the remains of a solitary elephant is rare. On the other hand a body in elephant country would usually soon disappear owing to the activities of natural scavengers.

           Most experts will accept that there is much truth in the old saying “An elephants never forgets”. It does have a retentive memory. Also, when an elephant is dying it is not uncommon for members of the herd gather round and try to revive it. When all hope is lost they encircle their relation as if in mourning at a funeral.

             Bees swarm in late spring in search of new home. During the winter the queen bee begins to lay her eggs and the colony sets about rearing its young. As the weather becomes warmer and the early flowers appear, the raising of young bees increases rapidly.

              By the end of spring the colony has become so overcrowded that a large number of the bees, including the old queen, leave the hive and establish a new queen emerges who will experience the same swarming instincts the following year. And so the cycle of activity goes on.

               Under water, frogs breathe through their skins. A frog is an amphibian. That is o say it lives both on land and in water. It has lungs, but it has no ribs and therefore cannot expand its chest and suck air into its lungs as do reptiles, birds and mammals. On land air is drawn in and out of the frog’s nostrils, which have valves in them, by pulsations of the floor of the mouth. The air is forced in and out of the lungs by contraction of the throat and body muscles. A frog’s mouth is always kept tightly closed and the   pulsations of throat vary from 120-140 a minute.

               Even on land the skin plays a greater part in breathing than the lungs. However, air can be absorbed only through a moist skin. If the skin becomes too dry, the frog will die. Therefore the skin contains glands which secrete a clear mucus or smile whose function is to keep the skin moist and supple. The skin absorbs water as well air, for frogs do not drink.

                Frogs are cold-blooded. That means they are as warm or as cold as the air or water surrounding them. In winter they hibernate under water, where their body temperature fails, their bodily functions are kept at a minimum and breathing is carried on entirely through the skin.