TRAVEL CLUB

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25738, 25 February 1949, Page 2

TRAVEL CLUB

Opossums, introduced into the Chatham Islands in 1894, did much harm by eating young shoots and seedlings and delaying regeneration of the forest. said Miss E. Jefferson, a palliomo-' logist from Dunedin, who has been attending the Science Congress, in Christchurch, in an address to the Travel Club yesterday. Wild cats wrought havoc among the birds on the islands. Pigeons were now scarce, but. there were many fantails and swans, and ducks were found in great numbers on the many lakes. Wekas flourished. The islanders would not kill them until they were very fat but, when -they were fat, a bag of 100 in one night was not unusual.

Miss Jefferson said the residents of the Chatham Islands were charming, generous, and Ynost hospitable and she hoped that New Zealanders would get to know them better and appreciate more fuljy their difficulties. She gave a brief description of the carvings done in earlier ages in the bark of the karaka trees. These were distinctive in character and she was pleased to have obtained photographs of many of them.

Mr J. Wyn Irwin presided at the meeting. Mesdames R. T. Tosswill and R. Wynne-Owen were hostesses and songs were sung by Miss Jill Ledsham with Mrs J. H. Cocks as accompanist.