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Hokitika Guardian, 1 June 1932, Page 4

At the Magistrate’s Court at Greymouth yesterday, before Air AV. Meldrum, S.AI., Horace Arthur Owen, a greater from the wrecked vessel "Kaponga” pleaded guilty to the theft of an overcoat, valued at £5, the property of AVilliam McLaughlin. Senior Sergeant C. E. Roach said defendant stole the overcoat from the rest-room •at the Post Office, when he was present at the Kaponga inquiry. Accused stated he had been under the influence of liquor when he took the coat. The Magistrate said he would take into consideration the fact that there w'as no previous conviction against defendant, and also tne fact that the loss of his ship had thrown him out of work. He would be convicted and . ordered to come up for sentence within twelve months if called upon. An order was made for the overcoat which was in no way damaged, to be returned to its owner

“The morepork is usually understood to be essentially a night bird, but an incident witnessed by -, myself and a companion on the main Waiopehu track a few days ago proved con- f clusively that this bird ie not so helpless in the daylight hours'as is generally thought,” reports the ranger for the Wellington Acclimatisation Society. “While we were having lunch we ob'■erved a pair of white-eyes about 12 feet or 15 feet overhead, flitting about in a tawena tree. Without warning a morepork dropped from an. upper branch caught one of these small birds, and was gone in a second, the only evidence of this bush tragedy being three or four feathers floating slowly down to us.”