OKAIAWA.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 22 May 1923, Page 5

OKAIAWA.

. 4 (From Our Own Correspondent.) FOOTBALLERS' BALL. The Okaiawa Football Club's annual ball is to be held on Thursday next, when it is confidently anticipated there will be a lavge attendance. This ball has always been eagerjy looked forward to, and each year has been a most pronounced success. The committee is leaving no stone unturned to keep up th ra o;ood reputation of the past, and is making a big effort to try and eclipse all previous records. CORRECTION. In my report of the recent flower show the name of a successful competitor in the decorative class, Miss W. Siinger,, was erroneously printed Miss W. Stringer. TE NGUTU DOMAIN. . Some little time ago the Te Ngutu Domain Board entered, upon an extensive plan of impovements, and the work is now well on the way to completion. The work included cutting clown and removing the big and unsightly pinus insignis trees by the tennis court, moving the pavilion back, laying down an additional asphalt court, cleaning out the pond, laying out the ground and planting with shrubs and tiowers, making a track through the bush, etc. Already there is quite a transformation scene, and when the work, is completed the place will be quite unrecognisable compared with former times. The work was entrusted to Mr. J. Revell, and no better man co-ultl have been secured. Mr. Revell has become quite enthusiastic over the possibilities of Te Ngutu, and has obtained quite a number of donations in cash and shrubs and material required for the work in hand. lam sure the public will appreciate what is being done. The track through the bush' is a veiy fine idea, as now visitors of all ages will be able to walk through with ease. This has opened up a part of the domain which probably few visitors have ever seen. PERSONAL. M. A. Christiansen, who has been caretaker at the Te Ngutu Domain for some years, "has resigned his position, and is going on to his farm on the outskirts of the township. Picnic parties to the domain have been indebted to Mr. Christiansen for kindly attention to their needs. In the advertising columns will be found an advertisement inviting applications for the vacancy. Mr. L. Walsdorf, store manager to the Joll Dairy Company, has handed in his resignation, and is also going on the land. The general manager and directors of the company speak in high praise of the conscientious way in which Mr. Walsdorf has carried out his duties since he has been with the company, i OUR BIRD LIFE. I I do not wish to be pessimistic, but I am afraid that the efforts now being made by the Acclimatisation Society to •re-introduce the pheasant into the district are doomed to failure unless some means can be-found to exterminate their greatest enemy, the weasel. No more idiotic thing was ever done than the introduction of this pest into the Dominion. As is generally known, the stoat and, weasel were imported with the idea that they would exterminate the rabbit. So far as is known they have not affected the rabbit to any noticeable extent in those parts where he is plentiful, but have spread to districts which have no rabbits and have exterminated the pheasant and some other of the ground birds. The weka, for instance, the din of whose call would, in years gone by, be heard every evening, is now, like the pheasant, quite extinct in this district. When the weasel has cleaned up the ground birds he. will turn his attention to those that build in the trees, for he is an expert climber; in fact I believe he has already done so. A short time back I paid a'visit to Dawson Falls, where I had not been for some fifteen or sixteen years. I went right up through the bush and scrub and could not but note the almost entire absence of bird life. I heard one kaka and saw several "silver-eyes"—not a pigeon or tui was to be seen or heard, and it was one of those days when the tui would most assuredly have made his presence known had he been there. What a contrast to years gone by. Of course, as is well-known, there has been a lot of illegal shooting in the reserve, which would partly account for the disappearance of the pigeon, but not for .the tui. I have been informed that a well-known settler who has lived in the bush country for many years, places the blame on the weasel. He says he has seen them, and. shot them, right up in the tops o{ . the trees, and has no doubt in his own mind that they are the responsible party.