HUNTING STAMPS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 50, 28 February 1931, Page 10 (Supplement)

HUNTING STAMPS.

FASCINATING HOBBY.

OLD AJTD YOUNG SHARE

INTEREST.

ENGRAVING AND PRINTING

MASTERPIECES,

(By GEORGE A. DEVENEAU.)

As parents, one of our most interesting problems is to arouse and quicken our children's desire to know the worthwhile things about the world beyond their immediate horizon of sight and comprehension. The best formal education offered by schools is not sufficient in itself to educate our children in the truest and broadest sense unless we help to create in the individual child the desire to know.

Remembering the unbounded interest postage stamps aroused in me as a boy, I started about two years ago with my own children, to find out whether post age stamps still had the Aladdin's lamp charm of opening up new worlds of interests. To my delight, the postage stamp method of arousing a wider educational interest is working not only with the children, but with the adult members of the family. To those parents who want to share their children's interests, my experience should be of value. "What Is That Bird?" We were examining some stamps from the out-of-the-way country of Uruguay that had come to us from a friend in South America, and my daughter had shown me on her globe where the country was located, when her interest was excited by the repeated appearance 011 the stamps of a curious, long-legged bird. To her eager question of "What is that bird?" I had to admit temporary ignorance. That he must be an important citizen of the Uruguayan population I surmised, because he appeared on five separate issues from 1923 to 1927, inclusive. We all set to work to find out why. We found that our stamps pictured the Taru-Taru bird, the friend of the cattle men of all South America, remarkable because each TaruTaru bird adopts an animal, living constantly closo to it and picking the terrible cattle tick from the animal's hide, thus preventing the female tick from burrowing through the skin and

depositing her eggs in the flesh of the live animal. Equally interesting stories are connected with the Kagu bird, shown on the stamps of New Caledonia, the Kookaburra bird (Daceola) on the receut stamps of Australia, and the beautiful Quetzal that adorns many of the stamps of Guatemala. * A whole menagerie of animals has been assembled with quantities of tigers on the stamps of far-off Malay; with elephants on issues from the Congo; with ant-eaters from the French colony of Guiana; with giraffes from Nyassa, and the fleet hartbeests found as a

watermark design on the stamps of the Union of South Africa. We found our friend the Newfoundland dog on the issues of Newfoundland, but our search for a cat, the common pussy or an aristocrat Persian, has as yet been unavailing.

At first stamps stimulated our interest in natural history, but soon we launched forth on the sea of discovery and political history. We have reconstructed the whole story of Columbus' famous voyage from the stamps of Nicaragua, Portugal, Costa Rica and from the valuable Columbian Exposition issue of the United States. From the memorial issues of Bosnia, showing the murdered Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his Queen, and the town of Sarajevo, to the the tragic "Orphans of the War" issue of France, with its portrait of orphaned children, widowed mothers and the ghastly "Trench of Bayonets," Ave have reminders of the events and the significance of the World War to Europe. What peace and national freedom have meant are forcefully symbolised by the victory issues of Czechoslovakia and Jugoslavia showing these nations breaking the boudage of Austrian domination.

Illustrations of literary subjects, authors and poet* are surprisingly numerous on modern stamps, probably the most interesting issue being the beautiful Austrian charity issue of 192G, illustrating six episodes from the Niebelungen legend. The architectural treasures of the various nations can be studied on such issues as the Belgian charity issue of 1 f)2B, each stamp an exquisite engraving of some noteworthy cathedral. Czechoslovakia has celebrated the tenth versary of her independence with a surprisingly beautiful issue showing her castles, cathedrals and public buildings. The pyramids, the ancient Sphinx and other wonders of the Nile valley are illustrated on the stamps of Egypt. Authentic National Document?. Interest in history and other subjects lias, been stimulated as wo have studied the designs on our stamps. For biography, history, art, and even religion itself, wo have found abundant illustrative material. Geography and the location of the countries and their capitals and some of the principal cities have come easily and naturally each day as interesting stamps have been added to our collection.

There have been other benefits from the study of these "scraps of paper, 5 ' which are the only authentic national documents that are available to all of us. The capacity for close observation, the development of a knowledge of colour, the learning of neatness in the arrangement of the stamps in the album, all result naturally from the collection and study of postage stamps. The obtaining of stamps is a quest of no small interest in itself. Perhaps Lhei e are in the family some old, forgotten collections or old letters bearing early issues. Such a beginning would be most fortunate. Inquiry of friends and neighbours will doubtless produce letters from foreign countries bearing current issues of stamps. It will be necessary in most' cases, however, to purchase packets of assorted postage stamps. These may be obtained from numerous reliable stamp dealers 111 any of the larger pities, and can also be imported in quantities from various foreign houses. If one is more resourceful, he may •establish contact with collectors abroad. There are also numerous foreign exchange clubs located in Germany, France, Spain, Persia, Japan, India and elsewhere that publish names of collectors who are desirous of exchanging stamps, postcards, curios, etc. A further step will be to subscribe to s °me one of several interesting and informing philatelic magazines which de?cribe new issues and contain instructive articles 011 the various phases of stamp collecting. Several very helpful books have been published dealing with postage stamps and their collection.— ("Star'' and A.A.N.S.)_