FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 262, 26 January 1928, Page 10

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By “THE LOOK-OUT MAN"

THE MOTORISEBEE California honey farmers mount their bea. hives on automobiles and drive them to the vicinity of orchards in blossom.—• American newspaper paragraph. How doth the little busy bee Improve the shining hour And add to her efficiency By using motor power! All comfy in a cosy car Around the land she roams No more she lugs the nectar far To fill her honeycombs. To note her enterprise in biz Will certainly repay one. Her motto, briefly stated, is “A short haul and a gay one.” Admire ber as she tours about, With modern thought in tune. She toill be going in, no doubt, For aviation soon. TfHE ELUSIVE JELLYFISH

There is no need for bathers to become alarmed at the invasion of jellyfish in the harbour. Millions of these watery-looking inhabitants of the sea are to be found round the wharves and bays, sometimes to the discomfort of bathers on the beaches. In some quarters of the globe the jellyfish attains a width of several feet, and attached To its umbrella body are long, hair-like tentacles which sting. The invasion of jellyfish reminds one of the story of the man, reputed to live near Hobson Bay, who carted a barrow-load of jellyfish to his garden, having heard that they were good fertilisers. Next morning he could not understand where they had gone. As a jellyfish is about S 9 per cent, water it soon disappears when exposed to the sun.

EDUCATED IN AUCKLAND Another young New Zealander wins momentary fame in London. Mr. G. H. R. Young’s farce, “Just As You Please, Dear,” was excellently received on its first presentation at the New Theatre. Mr. Young, who is a nephew of the present SolicitorGeneral, received part of his education at the Auckland University. His farce was first “tried out” on Wellington by Victoria College students. Auckland University has another dramatist upon its Honours Roll—Reginald Berkeley, who was called ‘to the New Zealand Bar in 1912. One of his comedies, “French Leave,” was played in Auckland by the late Emilie Polini. Other plays to his credit are “Mr. Abdulla” and “Eight O’clock.” Berkeley has also written a successful drama for Broadcasting, a performance that requires a rigorous revision of technique on the author’s part.

AT BURIED WAFRO A In Australia the aboriginal is most amazingly hazy\ on the subject of ages. Ask a withered old lubra-crone her age and she will reply with all the archness at her command that “she bin eighteen.” She probably “bin” eighty-eight, but that is a figure to which she has never given a thought. The Maori, on the other hand, keeps a fairly accurate tab on these birthday events and there is therefore reason to believe the claim that Rahera Wi Warana, who died the other day at the Judea Settlement, was 101 years old. One of her daughters was killed in the Tarawera eruption at Wairoa —now shown to tourists as the buried village. This daughter saved the life of her young son by holding him aloft with both hands. The rescued lad, whose age will now be round about 42, is living in Tauranga. He should certainly be an ideal racecourse companion when one has been forced to that stage of “picking the card” for luck. A man who had the good fortune to come through the Tarawera eruption without harm should average six winners a day.

WEATHER WISE It Is surprising that, in the failure of the Government’s new meteorologist to earn his £9OO a year by forecasting a midsummer deluge at the peak of this season’s drought, the authorities at the Auckland Zoo have not studied the ways and wisdom of animals and birds. From the earliest times birds, in particular, always have been regarded as weather wise. Long, long before scientists and charlatans discovered spots on the sun and roving signs of cyclonic disturbances, men relied almost entirely upon the movements of animals to tell the weather. The Director of the Zoological Society’s Aquarium notes in his fascinating book, “Animal Mysteries,” that ducks often become -restless just before a thunderstorm. Hence a “dying duck in a thunderstorm” is a phenomenon by no means rare.' Wolves forecast rain by breaking into a chorus of discordant howls. Then sea-lions bark even at the distant approach of a rainstorm, and b'ark loudest when the wind veers to a rainy quarter. City Councillors, instead of spying out weaknesses and menacing portents at the Waitakere dam, should watch the moukeys and .the jjolar bears at the zoos ,