NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 2557, 20 March 1923, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

There are thirty-eight different varieties of birds found in Middlesex, ranging from domestic fowls lo nightingales. Japan is, perhaps, the only country in which fashions for ladies have not changed materially for 2,500 years. In Great Britain there are about. 3,000 picture theatres; Africa, Australia. and Asia have altogether only about 1,361. Last year the ambulances maintained by the London County Council received 3,087 calls more than they did in 1921. ' Licenses were issued in Britain for 873,605 mechanically propelled vehicles in 1921, as aginst 269,200 horse-drawn. What, stars are made of, how fast they are moving and how far they really are away, can be told by the aid of a spectroscope. One big New York store contains its own theatre. Visitors can find a complete day’s entertainment without leaving the place. Sir William Gomm, who died in 1875, held the extraordinary record of having spent eighty-one years in the British Army. The condor is the only bird which keeps its young in its nest for a year, as they cannot fly until twelve months after being hatched. The Baltic is the shallowest sea, being only forty- three yards in depth. Next comes the Adriatic, with an average of forty-five yards thThe largest anti-friction bearing in the world, recently on show in London, weighed more than a ton, and was more than four feet in height.