MARINE LIFE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 51, 1 March 1935, Page 5

MARINE LIFE.

A SCHOOL MUSEUM. "FINDS" ON THE SEASHORE. PUPILS AS NATURALISTS. Most adults could learn a lesson <it the Seatoun School, the children of which are building up a most interesting museum of marine life (says the "Dominion"). Objects found on the nearby seashores are preserved there in a variety and number which is a surprise to even a seaside resident. Nature study is a subject in every school, but the staff of this seaside school has exploited the children's environment to give them a living interest in their work. Tho school is fortunate to have a room to spare, and there, row upon row, are specimens in labelled bottles, while upon the walls are arrayed those objects which can be preserved in the air. Nearly all have been gathered on the picturesque coastline of the school's district. Some are familiar objects to all who have ever rambled about the shores of the harbour, and others most people know exist but have never seen, but a vast proportion of the little museum consists of objects which the average person does not know exist at all. For instance, everybody knows there are plenty of crabs about the shore, but who knows that there are ones called spider crabs, which have hairs and cover themselves with seaweed as camouflage, and that crabs can be found laden with eggsT

"Egg Capsules of a Gastropod." One of the most striking exhibits is a section of the eggs of a skate, an object like a bunch of elongated pure white grapes, which fills entirely a large jam jar. There is the skin of a porcupine fish, a queer fish like a globe

covered with prickles. Another exhibit secured in the locality is a, piece of rock pitted by a shellfish which bores in rock. A bottle labelled "sea tulip" contains an aptly named object. Sea urchins, limpets,' squibs and their eggs, starfishes, sea, horses, anemonjes, a small shark, shells and the tentacles of octopuses are only some of tlte contents of the museum—not one of ouch, but often many varieties of each khnd. Most are plainly labelled, but many others, such as the "egg capsules of a gastropod, are less seTf-explanatory to the casual

visitor. ~ , ~, The teachers state that the children are enthusiastic over tho study of the seashore which has been undertaken at the school, and although organised expeditions are conducted try the teachers, the children themselves .search for and brint* in specimens, while -a number come from" fishermen and other residents of the district. Before Christmas one ot the boys arrived at the- school in his

bathing suit holding at arm's length by the neck an octopus, the tentacles of which writhed round his arm and were kept from his face by other boys.

There have been at the school for examination many things fished from the sea which it has not been possible to put in a bottle of formalin or dry and hang up, such as a six-foot shark. No other school will ever have a museum exactly like Seatotin's, because it is practically specialised on the life of the harbour entrance. Its interest is largely in the fact that nearly all the strange things came from the 'sea so close to the city. The school has been able to supply even the Dominion Museum with specimens it lacked.