Selwyn House School - Yearbook (Montreal, Quebec Canada)

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FOR THF SCHOOL YEAR 1938 - 1930 NlacDowell, age R, sends a nice little essay on Esate A bear can mend a broken bone with mud, grass, and sticks, so Kipling called him the Doctor of the Forest. Bears sometimes get scurvy, and when shot are found to have their stomachs stuffed with pine needles, or, if these are not available, with moss. Mother bear believes in Spare the rod, and spoil the child , and when her cubs are naughty she gives them a box on the ear with her paw Y One day some men while hunting came upon two cubs in a tree. They found mother bear a few yards away, because hears love their cubs and look after them. The men threw sticks and stones at the bear, but she would not move away until they fired a gun into the ground in front of her. She then ran only a short distance and stayed behind some bushes. The men caught the young bears and when the cubs found that they were to be taken away from their mother, they moaned and cried and even shed tears. Pk PII PF We have to thank also the following: f- R. Molson, Jani YYinter, Stuart Morgan, M. Nlagor, .-X. Powell, George Clarke, and D. Rhea, for various efforts in prose and verse. As a sample of their work, we print herewith IJ. Rhea's Valentine Verse, handed to Miss S dz Y- .. , . mea I -zrolffff fzkr 10 be zz fzllff' bzrff, .fwzz-y up 1471 flu' air, But-ver I tc'nn.fn' no! fikr ff, l'11!f.v.v -von, too, www flzvrr .' Qlluriuus Jfatts Qhuut Zlnsstts ant: Worms Entomology is my hobby, and l find it very interesting. YYorms are not insects, but I have included them in this article, as they are so peculiar. Another common mistake is that a spider belongs to the insect class. The average human baby weighs eight pounds. lt' a caterpillar weighed this when he was born, in one month, if he could find enough leaves to eat, he would weigh 2-L0 tons I Think what a IeI'rO1' this insect would be I The record for egg-laying goes to a species of white ant. The female of this species lays 89,600 eggs in a day. She would certainly take the prize in a Stork Derby I Many insects lay nearly as many eggs as this, however. If you told anyone that his ancestors were worms, he would probably take it as an insult. Nevertheless, this is true. :X kind of worm was the ancestor of all vertebrates. An earthworm has a digestive system, nervous system, and his blood circulates. In many ways, man is the same as a humble worm. The grasshopper is the world's greatest jumper. He can jump fifty times his own length. To equal this feat, a man six feet tall would have to jump a distance of 300 feet, and rise a good height above the earth. The leap would be a standing jump. The grass- hopper never runs before a leap. Not many people think of the glow-worm as the inventor of the brush, light by oxidisation, and the use of anaesthetics. If you look closely at a glow-worm's head, you will see two small mandibles. These he uses to kill his prey, a kind ofsnail. First, he stalks l9l

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SELWYN HOUSE SCHOOL M.-XG.-XZINE Generally speaking, l do not think Canada is experienced enough to become ab- solutely autonomous. It would not be impossible, but rather risky. To remain in the British limpire has many more advantages than becoming in- dependent. lt means that Canada is a member of a world-wide brotherhood of nations, the greatest empire the world has ever seen. lt offers innumerable advantages to a nation like Canada. There are great economic possibilities in trade preference which is in practice throughout the Iimpire, and hence Canada is able to obtain goods ol' all kinds, cheaper, from all over the world. Canada is not bound by any central oligarchy to light for Britain. Matters ot life and death are differentg then Canada is practically bound to help Britain. But on the other hand, in secondary wars, such as the Khartum incident 1182-ll, neither Canada nor the other Countries of the lfmpire need help. Imperial migration is feared by lfrench-Canadians, who would greatly dislike to have Quebec peopled with an lfnglish majority. In addition to this Canada has the full protection of the British Navy, the greatest navy in the world, for which she contributes nothing, though the British public pays a large tax for its upkeep. Roosevelt has also said that the l'nited States would help Canada in the event of a war. The most safe of all these courses, is, in my opinion, to stay with the Empire. In it we are practically sell'-governing, we have a member in the League of Nations, there is a Canadian embassy in the Vnited States, Japan and France, and the government is estab- lishing embassies at Brussels and the Hague. We can gain nothing by breaking away from the Empire. D. H., Form 5. Zllibe Eluniur Svtbuul These little boys are very young, so please do I1Ot be too critical of their efforts . Contributions to the Magazine are always most welcome, even from the youngest members of the School, and the lriditor wishes to thank the many contributors. George Furse, age 7, sends us: f Tlzfre 011111 10115 ll ,vrlzoofbnvy 71111116117 :7i111, Ifho 13117116111 111 le111'11 Ima' 10 .ffi,'ilIi.' The 1111111 111 fha' 150111 Did flu' 0C'l'J'-IIl7'7l ,vt1'0k1', .-11111 lic lrim' to imitaff him ! liniericks are obviously popular, for M. Ballantyne, age S, offers: H- Tl11'1'f tL'11.r 1111 ofd 1111111 i11 I1 boat, Ii'!10 mirzl, 1,111 QHOIZI, Illil 11170111 , 1171111 lhrir said, No, -ran 11i11'l, Hr 16111 1'1'111ir 10f11i11l, Thar Illlhllfljt-X' old 1111111 in fl boat. lSl

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SICLWYN HOUSE SCHOOL MAGAZINE a snail. Next, he jabs the two mandibles, one after the other, into the snai1's Hesh, before the snail can protect himself. The anaesthetic, which is supplied by a gland, Hows into the snail through minute grooves, and the victim is helpless. Ir is then an easy matter for the glow-worm to pulp and eat the insensible snail. A brush is to be found near the glow-worm's tail. This the glow-worm uses as a help in climbing, and to clean his skin, so as to emit a clear light. hlost people are familiar with the glow-worm's power to give forth light, so I will not describe it. A recently discovered species of marine worm is capable of gnawing through the lead covering of an undersea cable, and then severing a seven-tenths of an inch thick wire. The telegraph company will have great trouble in killing this worm, as it lives so far be- neath the surface. Ir is a relative of the destructive shipworm. In Java, Mr. Ifairchild discovered termites growing mushrooms for their own nour- ishment. :Xn ant guards aphides, so as to be able to drink the aphides' honeydew, which the aphis excretes, when stroked by the ant. All this happens in your own yard, on a rose- bush, and is one of the most famous friendships. The wor1d's annual silk output could be made into a thread so long that it could be stretched about 365 times to the Sun. The distance to the Sun is 93,000,000 miles, so you can see how many caterpillars it takes to spin the world's annual silk output l Th beetle is the strongest animal for its size in the world. I-Ie can lift anything up to 850 times his own weight. A man would have to lift seventy tons to equal this. The mandibles of a beetle are very strong, also. Probably you have had experience of the nip- ping powers of a stag beetle. An insect's eye is divided up into a number oflenses. A human being's eye, like most animals', is composed of one big lens. The robber Hy possesses 30,000 lenses in his small eye, while a Brazilian beetle has only eight. A beetle found in Guiana is a veritable giant. Its name is Titanus Giganteus, and it is very rare. The length of this beetle is eight inches, and it is two and a half inches wide. Another beetle, Dynastes Neptunus by name, is seven inches in length, and is of about the same width as Titanus Giganteus. In the moth family, the largest member is the Great Atlas Moth C.-Xttacus Atlasj. The distance from wing tip to wing tip is usually about nine inches, although a specimen in the British Museum measures 1134 inches across the wing tips. If you are going to take up entomology as a hobby, I advise you to read a book on it beforehand. 1 abre's Book of Insects and Grassroot jungles are good books to read. The former is mostly written on European insects, while the latter is about insects found in your garden. The former is illustrated by coloured plates, while the latter has a large number of photographs. A good rule to remember in entomology is: Never kill an insect, unless it is ab- solutely necessary to do so. Live insects are more useful than preserved ones. I can gua- rantee you will find entomology a fascinating study, and you will discover many strange, minute animals awaiting observation in your garden. The rule seems to be that the smaller the animal, the more interesting he is. :X mantis, for instance, is much more interesting than a horse or dog. .-Xn exception to this is found in the animals of prehistoric times. But, as a whole, entomology is the most enga- ging hobby and I think a large number of people will agree with me. D. D. P., Iform 3. l 101