VIVID LESSON.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 141, 17 June 1939, Page 12

VIVID LESSON.

MENACE OF STOAT.

GRIM WOODLANDS DRAMA.

EXHIBIT FOR SCHOOL USE.

(By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.)

CHRISTCHURCH, this day. Much has been written of the havoc wrought among native bird life by stoats, but the message is more vividly brought home in an exhibit prepared by the taxidermist at the Canterbury Museum, Mr. P. J. O'Brien, for circulation amongst schools. The neat little case presents a grim drama of the woodlands.

A stoat, lithe and muscular, is shown poised on the branch of a lemon tree. His appearance is one of cold-blooded ferocity as he crouches low, his claws gripping the branch of the tree. In his jaws, clutched by the neck, is the limp body of one of New Zealand's most cherished native birds, the grey warbler.

The exhibit is beautifully mounted and commands attention. The explanatory matter includes a picture of a weasel and a short note on the difference between this beast and the stoat. The acting-director of the museum, Mr. Tf. S. Duff, mentioned to-day that there was only one authentic record of a weasel being found in Canterbury.

With the preparation and circulation of these cases, the museum continues to travel to tho»e school children unable to visit the institution itself.

Another case to be 6ent out within the next few days provides a fund of information on the New Stone Age. This is the second of a series prepared by Mr. Duff to illustrate the development of man. The theme of this exhibit is the extraordinary similarity between the New Stone Age culture of different parts of the world at widely differing peH«<ds.

The New Stone Ape in Europe was between 8000 and 1500 B.C. In New Zealand it ended not mnch more than a hundred years ago. Yet, as Mr. Duff's exhibit shows, adzes found many centuries ago in Denmark are exactly the same as thoee used by Maoris in 1830. There is also a remarkable similarity between the implements of the Stone Age man in Fiance and those found in the Solomon Islands.