Beaks are tools for finding food.

Beaks peck at trees for yummy beetles and grubs. Woodpeckers use their straight, pointed beaks to drill holes in trees. They poke their long, sticky tongues into the holes and drag out insects that live in the wood. Woodpeckers can be found in forests.

Beaks tug and pull, tug and pull until the worm lets go and . . . gulp!

The robin is a familiar bird. Robins nest on farms and in cities, towns, and forests. They are often seen running over lawns or golf courses. They use their slender beaks to pluck earthworms from the soil. Robins also eat berries and insects.

Beaks crunch nuts and munch them and have them for lunch. There are hundreds of kinds of parrots in the world. Most parrots live in tropical

forests and eat nuts, seeds, and fruits. Big, thick beaks help parrots crack and eat large, hard-shelled nuts.

Beaks dive deep into flowers for sugary nectar.

Hummingbirds are the tiniest birds. They fly so fast that their wings look blurred. Ruby-throated hummingbirds live in open areas where trees and gardens grow. Hummingbirds lap nectar from flowers using the long, thin tongues in their needle-like beaks.

Beaks dabble in the muck for weeds and tasty bugs. Mallards are ducks that live near rivers, lakes, and marshes. Mallards tip up to feed off the bottom. They use their short, flat bills to eat seeds, grass, insects, and even small pond animals.

Beaks sift the water, slurping down seafood soup. Flamingos live in salty lagoons. Their beaks look bent and are lined with little ridges. Flamingos wade through shallow pools with their heads underwater. They use their beaks as filters to strain small creatures out of the water.

Beaks snatch fidgety frogs and lazy lizards, bumbling beetles and snoozing snakes. Crows are found in open and wooded land over almost the entire United States. Their beaks are strong and sharp, and crows will eat almost anythinginsects, dead animals, lizards, frogs, eggs, young birds, garbage, or corn on the cob. Beaks scoop a bucket of sea and, if they are lucky, a bucket of

fish. Pelicans are large birds that are found along seacoasts and the shores of inland lakes. Pelicans have long, flat beaks with huge throat pouches. They use their beaks like fishing nets to scoop fish from the water.

The carrier snail keeps adding to its disguise.

Inch by inch, wiggle by wiggle, something down there is moving. It creeps along the sandy ocean floor. It moves past the swaying seaweed and around the rusty anchor chain.
Its the carrier snail, and its hunting for treasure. Right now, it might be looking for a small shiny shell. Later on, it might choose a smooth speckled stone or a jagged piece of coral. The snail is always searching for the perfect piece to add to its collection. When it selects an object, the snail squirts glue from its own body onto its shell. It leans up against what it has found and holds very still until the glue has set. The snail might t seem to mind. Once the piece is stuck tightly to its shell, the snail is off again in search of more. Who would ever guess that this is a snail? The things it glues on its back make it look like a tiny pile of rubble. Why does it do it? Some people think the snail wants to make its shell stronger or prettier. Others think that the extra objects on its back keep the snail from sinking into the mud. Still others think that the treasures keep the snail safe.

Carrier Snail Shell (top view)

Scientists have studied different kinds of animals for many years. Often they have been surprised at the special ways animals have of protecting themselves from enemies. Some animals use their color to keep them safe. No one has to teach them. Its one of natures built-in protections. The brown sparrow looks like part of the nest it sits upon. The winter coats of some jackrabbits match the color of the snow. The spotted fish blends in with the pebbles of the mountain stream.

Carrier Snail Shell (bottom view)

Other animals use the things around them to keep them safe. This, too, is one of natures built-in protections. A spider may cover itself with a leaf. A caterpillar may stick flowers on its back. A crab may hide in an empty shell. Camouflage is the special name for these kinds of protection. Camouflage includes all the ways that animals disguise or hide themselves to fool their enemies. The carrier snail must use camouflage, too. Bigger animals in the ocean know that the snail would taste good. No wonder it keeps adding to its disguise. So every day, inch by inch, wiggle by wiggle, a tiny pile of rubble creeps along the sandy ocean floor. It moves past the swaying seaweed and around the rusty anchor chain. The carrier snail is hunting for more ocean treasure to add to its disguise.

For a bird, she wasn't a bad scientist. Lumpy passed the time doing what all free-roaming chickens doscratching the soil to search for her favorite snacks: crunchy potato-beetle grubs. Lumpy was a Rhode Island Red hen. She lived near the Delaware River, on Barbara Yeamans and Ed Weselys farm in Pennsylvania. Of all the chickens weve had over the years, Lumpy was our favorite, said Ed Wesely. She got her name because of the lump on her neck, probably an injury caused by a hungry fox or raccoon. One day, scratching in the herb garden, she found more than grubs. She found treasure. A Stone out of Place Lumpy dug up a dark-gray pointed stone with her bright-yellow feet. I know she dug up the pointed stone because that September day I happened to be in the herb garden, too, said Ed.

Ed noticed the stone immediately because it was not reddish-brown shale like other stones on the farm. It was dark-gray argillite (ARE-jilllight), almost two inches long, and flata perfect skipping stone. It had tiny shiny flakes and a milky-white spot that could be seen only through a magnifying glass. And the stone had a pointed tip.

Where had it come from? Did an Ice Age glacier leave it behind? Did the river wash it ashore? Whats the Point? Ed and Barbara sent a photograph of the stone to Joe Baker, who is an archaeologist. Mr. Baker said that Lumpy had found a spearpoint made by prehistoric people about four thousand years ago, before bows and arrows were in use in Pennsylvania. Lumpys pointed stone was left behind by peoplenot by floods or glaciers. To make a spearpoint, one rock was used to hammer against a second rock, chipping away until the second rock became pointed. Prehistoric people used spear-points to catch fish and hunt wild animals. But how did an argillite spearpoint end up in a land of red shale? Prehistoric people traveled and traded. Family groups of 20 or 50 trekked miles through wet, warm forests of oak and hemlock. They searched for hunting grounds and for others willing to trade. Perhaps Lumpys point was made of argillite from southern Pennsylvania. A traveler may have found it or traded for it. Maybe a prehistoric boy lost the spearpoint while hunting. Thenfour thousand years laterthe argillite treasure with tiny shiny flakes and one milky-white spot was found by a sweet Rhode Island Red named Lumpy.

To raise a crop of fungus, ants use weed-killing bacteria. If you could look into a nest of leaf-cutter ants, heres what you might see. A warm, humid pile of ants surrounded by darkness. Millions of worker ants zip this way and that over a mixture of leaf mush and something that looks like dirty cotton. One of the workers rushes to a corner of the chamber. She walks back and forth, mixing the pile of mush with the pincer-like mandibles of her mouth. (All of the workers are female.) She rubs her underside against the mush. A few more workers join in and imitate her. As quickly as they started, they stop and move to other parts of the chamber. What were they doing? They were tending their garden. The first worker had noticed a destructive fungus, and the group treated it with their own weed killer, made by bacteria that grow on the ants undersides. Insect Farmers These are no ordinary ants. They are often called gardener ants or leaf-cutting ants. They stand out because they are some of the few creatures that grow their own food. Only humans, wood-boring beetles, and some kinds of termites are also known to be farmers. Gardener ants live in many tropical areas, where they cut up enormous numbers of plant leaves. They take the pieces into the nest, chew them into a mush, and deposit the mush in chambers inside the nest. In this warm, moist mush, the ants grow a white fungusa kind of mushroom. The ants eat the fungus just as we eat the food we grow.

A queen ant, which is giant compared to a worker, eats large amounts of fungus to produce her eggs.

Like human gardeners, ants have to tend their garden constantly. Scientists have found that if the ants are removed from their nest, other fungi, which are always there, will grow like weeds and destroy the white fungus. When the ants tend their garden, only their crop of white fungus growsand the ant colony prospers. Some colonies support eight million ants. Thats a lot of ants. All together, this many ants would weigh as much as a cow. Whats Their Secret? Scientists wondered how the ants control their garden pests. This mystery went unsolved for a long time.

An ant expert named Dr. Cameron Currie and his co-workers at the University of Toronto have solved the mystery. They have discovered a pest-control system that is used by many different species of gardener ants.

In this magnified picture, the line points to a white mass of bacteria growing just below an ant's head.

When the bacteria are magnified even more, they look like a tangle of string.

While Dr. Currie was working in the rain forest of Panama, he noticed a whitish-gray powder under the forelegs or below the head of tiny gardener ants. Other scientists had seen the powder before. They supposed it was something made by the ants bodies. Dr. Currie wondered what the powder might be. He looked at it under a microscope. To his surprise, the powder was made up of live bacteria. Next, Dr. Currie and his team of scientists asked, What kind of bacteria are these? They discovered that the bacteria growing on the ants belonged to a group called Streptomyces (streptoh-MY-seez). This finding was important. Scientists know that many Streptomyces bacteria make chemicals called antibiotics, which can kill some kinds of fungi.

Was it possible that the ants were using antibiotics from the bacteria to control their garden pests? To answer this question, the scientists mixed antibiotics from these bacteria with several types of fungi from the ants nest. This experiment showed which kinds of fungi the chemicals could kill. The antibiotics did not harm the fungus that was grown by the ants. But it did kill the weed fungi. The bacteria were helping the ants take care of their garden by killing only the garden pests and not the ants food. Partners Each of the three species (ants, white fungus, and bacteria) gives something that one of the other species needs to live.

The ants take care of both the fungus and the bacteria. For the fungus, the ants make the leaf-mush and keep it warm and humid. They also kill off other fungi with chemicals made by the bacteria. For the bacteria, the ants provide a home for growth. In return, the fungus provides food for the ants, and the bacteria make the antibiotics that kill weed fungi. The surprising partnership of ants, fungi, and bacteria has survived in tropical rain forests for a long time, probably for millions of years. What other amazing things will scientists discover in those forests?

Dr. Cameron Currie digs for ants in the tropical rain forest.

Earth

When she was ten years old, Rachel Carson knew she wanted to write. But why wait until she grew up? Her favorite magazine printed stories by children. She would send one in. If only she had a story to tell . . . The year was 1918. The United States was at war. Rachels brother, Robert, had joined the army a year earlier. When he sent letters home, Rachels mother read them aloud. One letter told of a pilot whose plane had been shot. Was this a story Rachel could write about? She listened carefully. One wing had been damaged. The plane would crash unless the pilot acted quickly. He climbed out and inched along the wing. The pilot held on like an acrobat and balanced the plane again. His copilot landed it safely. This was it. Rachel had an exciting story to tell. She wrote about that pilot in her own words, then sent in her story. Five months later, she opened St. Nicholas magazine and felt a thrill. Her name appeared under the title A Battle in the Clouds. Rachel kept writing. St. Nicholas printed more of her work. Her poems and essays won awards at school. At college, Rachel studied English. But in her third year, she focused more on science. As a young girl, Rachel had loved the wildlife and plants in the fields around her home. Now, in her science classes, she enjoyed studying those animals and plants. Rachel became a biologist, a scientist who studies life and living creatures. She wrote about what she learned. Her three books about the sea became best sellers. Rachel was able to combine her love of science with her love of writing. In 1958, Rachel received an alarming letter from a friend. A poison had been sprayed to kill pest insects, but many birds died, too. That pesticide, or pest killer, was known as DDT. Just as her brothers letter had once inspired her to write a story, Rachel again had a story to tell. First, Rachel collected facts from scientists around the world. She learned that DDT and other pesticides had helped to control some harmful insects that carry diseases. However, they had also killed harmless insects, fish, and birds. Even our national bird, the bald eagle, was dying out. Pesticides were polluting the earth and poisoning humans, too. Rachel wrote a new book called Silent Spring. She said that people must be more careful with pesticides, or else there would be no birds left to sing in springtime. She wanted scientists to seek less harmful ways of controlling pests.

When Silent Spring came out in 1962, many people did not believe what Rachel had written. She waged a battle of words to convince thema battle for the earth. She showed courage, like the war hero whose story she had written long ago. Rachel appeared on television. She spoke in front of many groups of people, including lawmakers. In time Rachel gained support from people around the world. They shared her concern for cleaning up the earth. Laws were passed to stop the use of DDT, and people joined groups to protect the environment. Rachel Carson died in 1964. Today she is remembered as a great environmentalist, a person who searches for ways to protect nature in an ever more crowded world.

Racing down the volcano like a fiery snake, lava roars and hisses and crackles. Dr. Maggie Mangans job is to walk across the volcanos fresh, hot crustwhich was molten rock just an hour beforeand take samples from the stream of flowing lava. As she steps close to the lava flow, her face feels hot under her protective mask, as if her skin is beginning to burn. Walking on an erupting volcano is all in a days work for Maggie. Maggie is a geologist who specializes in the study of volcanoes. Her office is perched on the rim of the worlds most active volcano, Kilauea (key-lah-WAY-ah). That volcano is in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on the island of Hawaii. Usually, when a volcano erupts, everyone runs away from it. How can Maggie get so close to Kilauea during an eruption? Quiet Eruptions The reason is that Kilauea is different from most volcanoes. One important difference is that Kilauea does not explode when it erupts. Instead, its lava flows steadily, forming hot streams and underground tubes full of lava. Maggie explains that the magma in the Hawaiian volcanoes is what makes them different. The magma in most other volcanoes is thick, like pudding, because it contains a lot of a chemical called silica. When this magma comes to the surface (where it is called lava), it can explode. These explosions are caused by gasesmostly steamtrapped in the magma. When the magma comes out, a huge amount of gas inside it expands instantly, forming bubbles that can burst with explosive force. The thick lava then piles high, forming a mountain shaped like an anthill. But inside Kilauea, the magma contains very little silica and very little gas. Its called basaltic (buh-SAWL-tick) magma. Because basaltic lava flows more like syrup than pudding, the small amount of gas in it escapes without an explosion. This runny lava creates a wide mountain with a curved top, like a warriors shield lying on the ground. Because of this shape, the Hawaiian volcanoes and a few others in various parts of the world are called shield volcanoes.

Why do shield volcanoes have a different kind of magma? Scientists think the reason is that shield volcanoes do not form on the cracks, or faults, in the Earths crust as explosive volcanoes do. Instead, they form over hot spots in the Earths mantle. These mysterious places deep in the Earth melt holes in the crust, allowing basaltic magma to rise to the surface. For this reason, shield volcanoes are also called hot-spot volcanoes. Walk Softly To study lava flows, Maggie walks on hardened lava that may be barely two inches thick. I walk lightly and go fast, she says. A few years ago, a scientist working near her broke through the crust over a fiery pool of lava. Hes fine now, says Maggie. But working near fresh lava is the most dangerous part of our job. Sometimes lava is easy to reach because it oozes over the ground in what are called breakouts. But at other times the lava flows through underground tubes. To get to this lava, Maggie must find a skylight, which is a hole in the hardened lava that lets her see down into the underground tubes. When you reach one, you feel like youve been hit by a board, the heat is so intense, she says. Using a radar gun and other measuring devices, she can tell how much lava is in a lava tube and how fast its flowing. When the lava slows down, the eruption might be coming to an end. To collect a sample, Maggie throws a hammerhead attached to a stainless steel cable into the river of molten rock. Then she pulls out her catchlava that clings to the hammerhead like taffy. It hardens quickly as it cools, turning into a black, glassy rock. These lava samples contain crystals and other minerals that Maggie studies for clues about the lavas history. She can tell how long the molten rock sat in the magma chamber (which is a kind of holding tank inside the volcano) before it was erupted and how hot it was at the time of the eruption.

Clues to the End From the beginning of an eruption to its end, the lavas temperature and the mixture of minerals in it change. By measuring the temperature and studying the composition of the lava, scientists hope to learn how to predict the time when almost any shield volcano will stop erupting. The photograph to the right shows the two kinds of rock formed by shield volcanoes. Foreground: Extremely fluid lava hardens into sheets of puffy, sometimes ropy, rock called pahoehoe (pah-hoy-hoy). Background: Thicker lava forms a higher pile of crumbly, razor-sharp rocks called aa (ah-ah). Geologists have borrowed these Hawaiian words to identify these rock forms. Maggie and her helpers are not the only people who love Kilauea. Millions of people visit Hawaii Volcanoes National Park each year to see the beauty of Kilaueas gentle eruptions. If you have a chance to visit the park, you might spot some people near a hot lava flow. Theyre scientists who think its cool to be hot.