NATURALISTS’ FIELD CLUB

Evening Star, Issue 23553, 17 April 1940, Page 2

NATURALISTS’ FIELD CLUB

A TALK ON FIJI At the indoor meeting of the above club the speaker for the evening was the llov. W. J. Hands, who chose as his subject ‘ Fiji and Its People.’ The speaker was particularly well qualified to speak on this subject, having been resident there for some time. ' Mshy tourists felt that they had seen Fiji when they had visited Suva, he said. Suva was really a very cosmopolitan city, Europeanised and modern, and the real Fiji was to be seen outside the capital. Much 'of the country was mountainous, the highest being Mount Victoria, 4,000 ft. The densely-wooded hills and the abundant ..streams made the scenery very beautiful,- There were definite wet and dry zones, the lino of demarcation being very clear, buva, in the wet zone, had a rainfall ot XoJtn a year. Fiji, produced several veryvaluable timbers. One was very much like our kauri; another somewhat regambling red pine was used for furniture; one, called mahogany chad ft very hard wood j and onft-lik© boxwood was used extensively for posts, being particularly valuable of its great lasting qualities. The cocoanut palm, in particular, was jVgreat value, as it produced food, drink, clothing, and material for pudding the native houses. Even the smallest islands had cocoanut palms. The .nuts were water-borne, and so wets widely distributed. . ... . , Although Fiji had no large animals; there were several reptiles, including Chameleons and the house lizards, which liked to climb up walls and windows of the houses in search of mosquitoes and other insects, These house lizards had the same characteristics as the chameleons in that they were able to change their colour to match their environment. Insect life was particularly abundant, and the speaker humorously de-

scribed the methods and precautions taken by householders to - deal with pests, of which mosquitoes, cockroaches, and ants were the most troublesome. Fortunately* there wera no mosquitoes of the ~ malaria-hearing . species. The speaker went- on to describe the Fijian natives, their phyisique, their customs, and mode ci living, and paid _» tribute to wojrk ■ of the missionaries in transforming > a people who had been fierce s and canni* . balistic into a happy, contented, and peaceable people in less'than, a hundred years. Many very beautiful and Interesting slides were shown illustrate , ing every aspect, OUTING TO BETHUNE'S GULLY. / Fourteen members attended Satuiw day’s outing to fictbune’s Gully. Ths heavy mists on Mount Cargill mads it inadvisable to climb, so the party - kept to the tracks, following tbs stream. Of outstanding interest were th« masses of fruits .on the Schefflera digitate. These fruits grew in large clu*» ters, white, tipped with purple. Th* long, slender fruits of the Parsonsia hung plentifully from the bushes, and the purple berries, with their whit* stems, were conspicuous: on th* Pen- ; nantia corymbosa trees. A la£W clump ■of the sweetly-scented orchid (Earina autumnalis) was seen growing on a broadleaf tree. Ferns grew in profusion, sis varieties of Blechnmn as well as two.Aspleninms, Polypodmm.j Hymonophylluml and two.;,v3trieties, of tree fern being noted. , . . It was particularly pleasing to find bird life abundant. Brown creepcre, tomtits, bellbirds, andmanv fantail* were observed. Fungi were disappointingly few. but a very interesting specimen of the birds’ nfest fungus was col-. lected.