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Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 17, Issue 1001, 25 April 1871, Page 3

The Christchureh museum has received a consignment of five large cases from England, Germany, and Sweden. They contain a large variety of specimens, principally composed of quadrupeds and birds from all parts of Europe. A pair of parrots of the king species, .presented to the Canterbury Acclimatisation Society by Mrs Watts two or throe years ago, and since kept in the aviary, have built a nest, and one young one has been hatched out. This is the first recorded instance of parrots breed ing in confinement in Canterbury. There are 3,000 acres of oyster beds in Chesapeake Bay, yielding annually 25,000,000 bushels of oysters. Tn Baltimore upwards of ten millions of dollars are employed in ,the business of ,-canning oysters. An American paper chronicles the ..death of George Giles, who was born in England in 1780, and, when quite a lad, was seized by a press-gang in London, and forced the Navy. He witnessed die famous mutiny of the Nore, and saw some of the mutineers flogged. While on an expedition un.der Nelson he managed to desert, and eventually escaped to his old district of Southwark, Philadelphia. He resided there until misfortunes .and old age drove bun into a benevolent inftitution known as the Old Man's Home, in which he died' last month at the patriarchal age of ninety one. A woman named Catherine Lucas, the wife of Charles Lucas, the Hok,itika -town-crier, was found drowned, on the 21st ult., on the sea beach about half-a-mile from H.okitika, and on search being .made, the body of her infant child was /ound a little further up. From the .evidence given at the inquest, it appeared, that Mrs Lucas had gone out on that morning as if for a walk, taking her baby with her and, though apparently in good health, she must have l>een suffering from puerperal mania, an attack of which she had had recently. -She was seen by one witness walking on the beach at a pait which few persons now frequent, as the newly .constructed Araliura road is preferable, and there is little doubt that during a temporary aberration of mind, the unfortunate woman went into the surf where she and her infant were drowned. The jury returned a verdict to that .effect. *