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Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 116, 14 February 1928, Page 15

Innumerable excavators who dig up Auckland roads and footpaths frequently find novelties, including sea water, old drain pipes, made of totara, pipi shells, skulls, and skeletons (says an exchange). It is unusual, however, for the people who appear to sift Auckland over and over again by the shovelful to discover life beneath the pavement. Recently, only a few inches from the surface, the man with the shovel disclosed a family of young rats, which lay squirming in the dirt as hundreds of people (mostly unseeing) passed by. The point that intrigued the man with the shovel was that although the young family were all at home, the mother rat had departed. Merciful boat heels reduced the rat population as ladies swept by. A few years ago ladies might have emitted little squeals and gathered their skirts round their ankles tightly. Not a single lady passing by gathered her skirts any higher, and few of them squealed. A farm of 166 acres neat IVhangnrei was swept clean of pasture by fire, started apparently by a spark from an engine (states an exchange). The owner has been obliged to seek pasture in the bush.