PITHY PARS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 207, 8 September 1916, Page 4 (Supplement)

PITHY PARS.

Italy has 4UO princes and 4,50'> dukes. * » * A Chinese doctor's fee ranges fro-n 2d. to od. • • • • Snails in France cost, wholesale, 7s (3d per 1,000. * * * A message travc-is over an ocean cablg at about 700 miles a second. * * * More people live to be centenarians in warm count res than in cold ones. * * • Flying-fish have been known to rise twenty feet above the surface o£ the sea. * * » In Costa Rica canary birds, bullfinches, and parroquets are considered special dainties. * # # The park surrounding Blenhe : m Pa.. ace is 2,700 acres in extent and twelve miles round. * * * A reasonable allowance of water for a town is 80 gallons per head of the population daily, for all purposes. * # • It is estimated that £260,000 worth of diamonds are stolen every year 1 from the South African diamond mines. * * * A waterspout spins with enormous i speed. Its velocity at the sea level has been estimated at six miles a minute. * * # The Urge land crabs found on Ascension Island have been known to steal rabbits from their holes, and devour them. * » * The albatross varies from 12 lbs. to 28 lbs. .n weight. The largest ever shot was 17J ft. between the tips of its outstretclied wings. * * * * The largest stage in the world is that of the Grand Opera House, Paris, which is 100 feet in width, 200 feet m depth, and 80 feet in height. * * * # Canada has forests which, at the present rate of consumption of timber for paper, would supply the worM with paper pulp for 840 years to come. * * * Among natives of Central India' a marriage ceremony is often attended by a sham fight, and the same practice prevails among the Kalmucks oi Siberia. * * * In New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Quebec, many tnousands of hands are employed in fishing. The average season lasts from April to November. « * # The baya bird if India has the curious habit of fastening firefl-'es to 'ts nest with moist clay. On a dark night suih a nest might be taken for an electric lamp. * * * # The Burmese have a curious idea regarding coins. They prefer thos3 which have female heads on them, believing that coins with male heads on them are not so lucky. * * *

The sea is infinitely more productire than the land. It is estimated that an acije of good fishing will yield more food in a week than*an acre of the best land w 11 yveld in a year.

Simla, the summer seat of the Indian Government, is situated on tha side of a steep hill, so that the roof <Sf one house is often on a level with the f undation of one in the next tier.

In the United Kingdom there is no State bank, but the Bank of England, the Bank of Scotland, and the Bank of Ireland have Royal Charters, and tho first and the last lend money to the Government.

An African elephant is of value only for its ivorr, of which a full-grown animal yields from £SO to £6O worth. On the other hand, a working Indian elephant cannot be bought for less than £SOO to £7OO.

The beaked choetodon of India and Burmah is the only fish which literally shoots its prey. Its ammunition is a drop of water, and it fetches a fly with absolute accuracy at a he ; ght of oft. above the surface of the stream.

The thickest-skinned quadruped is the Indian rhinoceros, whose hide has a knotty surface, and is so impenetrable as to be able to withstand the claws of the lion or t'ger and the bullet from the cld-fashioned smooth-bore muskets.

Valetta, the capital of Malta, is one of the most beautiful icit : es in the world. The whole of the buHdings are of white stone, and ithere being no smoko or fog to discolour them, they are as fresh now as they were the day they were erected. * * *

The oldest working clock in Great Britain is that of Peterborough Cathedral, wh'ch dates from 1320. and is conceded to have been made by a monastic clockmaker. It is the only one now known that is wound up over an old wooden wheel.

There are nearly ten millions or natives in Central Africa who are not black, and who do not look much like the other savages in any way. These natives are of a peculiar yellowish copper colour, and their skulls are much larger than those of the negroes.

That sparrows ar,e not the pest they are painted has oeen proved by a well known naturalist, who observed that a pair of sparrows brought to the nests of their youngsters no fewer than 3,200 insects during a single week. In the course of one summer, he states, a pau* of sparrows destroy at least 50.000 insects.