OPEN EYES

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 611, 13 March 1929, Page 6

OPEN EYES

« Here we gather, here we meet in pow-woio friendly and discreet. To talk of earth, and sea, and sky, and watch the world of men go by.

OXK of the most fascinating occupations for girls and boys is watching the ways of different insects, birds and animals when the subject being studied is unaware that it is observed. How many of you have watched the common little grey mouse making its morning toilet outside its hole, or a worried mother rabbit giving Iter irresponsible children instructions for the day? Who has seen a cricket making musical explosions with its wings, a lizard shedding its skin in the sun, a stick insect posing as a motionless fragment of twig, a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis? T heard a story once of a weka trying to extricate a hot ember from a camp-fire. The observer “froze” and spent several moments watching the covetous bird in its vain attempts to run oft' with the gleaming object. At length, in disgust, it withdrew, only to return several minutes later with a fresh display of strategy. The Great-Out-Doors is a place of miracles to those with open eyes—teeming with humour, pathos, cunning, happiness and tragedy, and all the familiar elements that go to make up our own little world of every-day. IiEDFEATHEE.