RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 260, 29 July 1932, Page 10

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current Events LOCAL AND GENERAL (By Kickshaws.) It has been disclosed that a steward on the Taranaki paints pictures with his fingers. So sensible an idea may yet save modem art. • • • A boy who is about to visit Australia has taken the precaution to insure his voice. Even so it is doubtful when he gets there if he will find himself on level terms. A reader suggests that there must be a mistake in the name Hermann Schulenberg, mentioned on Tuesday, as having learned to speak after losing his larynx. He is positive that Hermann was a woman. • • • A Tomlinson asks the following questions about finance. He writes:— As questions of currency are of such vital interest would you please give me what information you can regarding the Swedish system. What do they base their currency on? Are internal prices stabilised? And if so, in what way is credit extended to accomplish this? Sweden has no special system of her own. She adopted the gold standard in 1873 in preference to her previous silver standard. During the war she went off the gold standard, came back to it in 1924 and went off it again when Britain suspended it In 1931. The Riksbank is the sole bank that Issues notes, which are legal tender all over the country. When Sweden first went on the gold standard in 1873 she entered into a monetary convention with Denmark and Norway. The monetary systems in these three countries are identical to this day. Internal prices are no more stabilised than they are elsewhere. Until the Kreuger crash Sweden, despite the slump, was still on the crest of a boom. Kreuger’s failure has altered that.

It is interesting to read that Mr. Lindsay Buick, whose researches into the moa are well known, considers that this curious bird continued to live In isolated spots in the South Island until comparatively recent times. Until some expedition is equipped to investigate matters there is no doubt that rumours will continue to persist that in some isolated spots in the south the moa is still alive. These rumours are given additional strength by the fact that remarkable fresh discoveries of moa remains are found from time to time, even to-day. In fact, limbs still covered with dried flesh, skin and feathers, have made experts wonder If these rumours might not have some truth. Moreover, the discovery of eggs complete with their inner membrane are such common finds it is obvious that the moa, if extinct, is only just so.

It is never wise to take for granted that a species of bird is extinct because it is never seen. It is even a moot point to this day whether the Great Auk is really extinct. A visitor to certain lonely Islands off Norway, called Lofoden islands, reported tho discovery of an unknown bird by two Norwegians that exactly tallied with the extinct Great Auk. Pictures that they made of the bird were identical with the extinct bird. The last known specimen of the Great Auk was supposed to have been killed in 1843. But to this very day there are rumours that this bird also exists on an island off Iceland. As this island has not been officially visited since 1833 it is not impossible that these rumours may be true. If the Great Auk were still alive it has the misfortune to be worth at least £5OOO, a sum comparable to the value of a live moa.

According to a piece of news tucked away in “The Dominion” yesterday, a gentleman in England claims that his wolfhound, 3ft. high, weight 1541 b., is the largest dog in Britain. One would not like to disbelieve this claim. But in the face of facts' concerning the usual weights of certain breeds of dogs it is difficult to uphold the claim that this gentleman has really the heaviest dog in England. It is a wellknown fact that the heaviest-dogs in the world belong to the type known as St. Bernards. Are there no St. Ber-, nards in England? A good specimen will turn the scales at 2101 b., considerably heavier than a man. The average weight of these dogs is at least 1701 b. This figure is run very close bv the Great Dane. This breed averages from 120 to 1601 b. The Irish wolfhound, for one specimen of which the claim mentioned above has been made, admittedly averages 1501 b., but it is doubtful if any specimen as ever outweighed one of the larger St. Bernards. It is a curious fact that very few of ns have the slightest idea what our dogs weigh. Foxhounds weigh some 601 b., as also do retrievers, collies, Alsatians, chows, and greyhounds. Bull-dogs weigh 501 b.. while the lightest dogs, the toy poodles, weigh from 31b. to 61b. ♦ * • If most of us have only a vague Idea of the weight of our dogs It is probably true that, except for sheep and steers, we are even more blissfully unaware of the weight of other wellknown animals. How many of us would care to say off-hand which was the heavier, a lion or a bear? As a matter of fact a bear is very much heavier than a lion weighing, ns it does, half a ton. compared to a lion's 4001 b. If we want to go to extremes it is amusing to compare a whale with a flea. A large whale weighs 150 tons, while fleas weigh out at 130.000 to the pound avoirdupois. The elephant is the largest land animal known, turning the scale in some cases at seven tons. In the case of birds size is no criterion of weight. The flamingo weighs a ihodest 51b. Yet it stands over 4ft. high. On the other hand the king penguin, only 3ft. tall, weighs no less than 401 b. In lower walks, of life the heaviest moth known weighs just over an ounce ; the biggest snail, a sea specimen, weighs as much as a bull-dog; while the largest shell fish, the giant clam, turns the scale at over two tons. In connection with the much-dis-cussed problem of motor fatalities, writes ‘‘C.H.H.,” of Palmerston North, the following verse is, I am told, engraved on a monument at crossroads on a main highway in America.- The monument depicts a motor collision as a warning to motorists. The moral of the verse is obvious: — Here lies the body of Cecil Ray. Died through maintaining his right of way; He was right, dead right as he sped along, But he is just as dead as if he’d been wrongs