AUCKLAND EMU’S CHALLENGE

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 260, 1 August 1939, Page 6

AUCKLAND EMU’S CHALLENGE

Away To Sitting Start In Hatching Contest NOW BROODING OVER TEN EGGS Dominion Special Service. AUCKLAND, July 31. As no advice to the contrary Jias been received, it appears that Silas, the male emu at the Auckland Zoo, has got away to a sitting start in the annual hatching contest with the Wellington Zoo’s representative. For more than a week now lie has been brooding quietly over 10 large eggs, recently handed over to his care by his mate. Last year Silas sat steadfastly and long on 14 eggs. but. seven weeks’ determined effort resulted in only two chicks being hatched, one of which subsequently died. On that occasion the Wellington bird sat on six esgs. and, in spite of normal weather in his home city, succeeded in hatching three. Wellington claimed the championship by choosing fewer eggs on which to brood.

This year Silas is concentrating more on quality than on quantity, and is confident of retrieving the paternity prize for Auckland. In his sitting he has a clear run, for his mate, who is apt to nag, has been placed in another enclosure. Even his son, who will have to take up this brooding business later on in life, is not allowed to remain nearby so that he can pick up a few wrinkles in the art.

Silas now has six weeks’ steady work ahead. What will be the result of his endeavours is as shrouded in mystery as the Budget. CAN WELLINGTON BIRD HOLD TITLE? Supporters Confident Of Success Partisans of the Wellington emu maintain that, as challenger for the title, it was incumbent on the Auckland bird to set the eggs rolling. In previous seasons the Auckland bird has always begun to sit a week to a fortnight in advance of the Wellington one. Perhaps its precipitancy has resulted in so large a proportion of its eggs being addled. Little apprehension, indeed, is felt concerning the outcome. In fine seasons, with greater quantities of eggs," the Auckland emu has so far hatched only a single chick that was not so weakly as to perish in infancy. His average is well below the 10 per cent, necessary to produce one chick from 10 eggs. With the additional handicap of a snowstorm in his opening week, his chances appear to be extremely slight. The Wellington emu, however, is a bird of regular habits. With Wellington’s less eccentric climate to assist it, is unlikely to let down its so far unequalled paternity record.