PRIZE STOCK.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 215, 11 September 1929, Page 23

PRIZE STOCK.

BULL AND BOAR.

IMPORTED FROM CANADA. HAY SUPPLY RUNS SHOET. An Ayrshire bullwith a wild eye anc wide-spread horns but docile tempera ment and an outsize in boars of affec tionate disposition were passengers or the steamer Canadiam Challenger, whicl arrived from Canada yesterday. Botl animals have pedigrees which run back tc the blue-blooded time of William the Conqueror or thereabouts. The boar embarked in the unenthusiastic way that pigs have, but the big Ayrshire did not want to leave his native Canadian soil, and made a huge fuss when he was hoisted aboard. He eoou settled down to the attractions of a sea trip, and developed such a prodigious appetite that at Panama the supply oi hay—of which the steamer's officers thought they had enough aboard for the full voyages—ran out. More alfalfa was gathered in at the canal zone, but once on the Pacific the bull began to eat in even more hearty fashion, his ratione just about lasting until the eteamer tied up in the Waitemata. The boar regarded the trip as a rest cure, and spent most of his time dozing in the sun. ■ He became very popular with the officers and crew who christened him "Willie," and as a special treat on occasions scratched hie long back with a fire-shovel. There is nothing ticklish about "Willie," and he is just as fond of being gently caressed as one of Auckland's suburban Persian cats. The next sea lap will be to Wellington where "Willie" and his big companion— a massive animal with two brass rings in his nose—will be landed for a short period of quarantine prior to sampling New Zealand's luscious herbage.