NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3601, 19 February 1927, Page 1

NEWS AND NOTES.

The seeds of the spice plant, Ammomiuni Melequeta, imported from New Guinea, are called “grains of Paradise.”

There are quite a number of people in Thames (says the ‘‘Star'’) suffering from (mosquito bites; in fact, some have had to receive medical attention. A local medical mail, asked if the mosquito’s .bite was poisonous, said it was not, hut as the insect bit deeply, people communicated disease germs to it during scratching or rubbing, which was natural from the irritation. These caused inflammation, and at times abscesses. It is stated that Te Aroha people are suffering a great deal from mosquitoes. “When is ' a whitebait not a whitebait?” The answer as supplied by Mr. Hope, of the Fisheries Department, Christchurch, “when it is an inunga.” A Dunedin man recently visiting the West Coast, saw in shop windows in Hokitika an exhibit; showing the .various steps in the evolution of the inunga from the whitebait. The specimens were those of the lish at three weeks old (ordinary whitebait), six weeks, nine weeks, twelve weeks, and adult age (a two-year-old inunga six inches long). The whitebait industry flourishes round about Hokitika, the south bank of the Hokitika River being the only place in New Zealand where erection of trenches for the purpose of netting the fish is permitted. Maoris have the exclusive right to fish for whitebait- in the Awakura River. i There are two factories in the district.