Live katipo at museum day

Press, 15 May 1985, Page 9

Live katipo at museum day

Live cockroaches, grasshoppers, and katipo spiders will be on display at the Canterbury Museum on Saturday as part of its annual museum day.

“The day is mainly to let the public know what the museum is doing and to let them know it is much more than displays,” said the museum’s director, Mr Michael Trotter.

Previous museum days had been very successful, he said. More than 1060 visitors are expected on Saturday. Maori, Samoan, and Rarotongan dancing and song groups will perform from 12.30 p.m. to 3 p.m.

Music lovers can listen to records from the early 1900 s on phonographs and gramophones. Members of the Society of Genealogists will be available to help visitors trace their family history. “We have records of most Canterbury families,” Mr Trotter said. Those interested in collecting rocks and fossils will be able to have them identified by a geologist, and a taxidermist will demon-

strate the stuffing of animals.

A fund to sponsor strengthening of the museum’s south wall will be launched on Saturday. The old part of the building dates from 1870.

Visitors who sponsor a stone will have their name entered in a leather-bound book.

Other items in the programme are demonstrations of lacemaking, sessions on the stars and planets in the planetarium, astronomy films, an exhibition of prints and paintings from 1780 to 1840, and “Sniff, the Police Dog,” a talking model of a puppet from a television programme.