FLY-PAPER FOR TIGERS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 238, 28 December 1927, Page 3

FLY-PAPER FOR TIGERS

EXPLORER’S RUSE FRANCIS BIRTLES’S TRIP If Mr. Francis Birtles can maintain all the way to Calcutta the daily mileage of his dash across Europe he will easily beat the London to Calcutta motor record of 80 days. He does, in fact, expect to arrive He did, in fact, expect to arrive complete the second lap of his effort to reach Australia in his 14 h.p. Bean overland through Burma. “I have got to get through by then,” he said, when he reached Sofia, “because of the snow on the Persian hills, 10,000 feet above sea level. I am travelling one, and I am taking no arms with me until I get to Calcutta, because the Dacoits would kill you for your arms. “I don’t mind tigers; the tiger is an animal of great dignity. I am playing up to its dignity, too, for I’ve got 12 dozen flypapers with me, and I am going to put several round my camp each night. Any tiger which sat on a flypaper would look so foolish that it would just skulk away. “.[f it doesn’t, well, before I left England I went round studying tigers to see how they chewed up their food. At Calcutta I am going to buy a heavy calibre revolver and a high velocity rifle, and I’ll camp with the hood of my Bean up and the tarpaulin down on both sides, so that any wild animal knocking about will not know which point to attack.” When Mr. Birtles set out from the motor show at Olympia, London, Sir Harry Brittain officially noted the numbers op his four tyres. These will be checked when the motorist arrives in Melbourne to test the claim that he can complete the 16,000 miles on one set of Dunlops.