GENERAL INFORMATION.

Northland Age, Volume IV, Issue 49, 27 July 1908, Page 8

GENERAL INFORMATION.

— * The average weight of the human heart is 9|oz.

Early wheat harvests are always the most productive.

.In Cochin China thero is to be found a race of black Jews.

The leech had three jaws, each fitted with eighty to ninety teeth.

In 1891 a merino sheep was sold at Sydney for £1,155.

Australia has over ten thousand distinct species of flowers.

The Indian Grand Trunk Road is the longest macadamised road in the woitd. Its length is 1,800 miles.

,In Australia spring begins on August 20, summer on November 20, autumn on February 20, and winter on May 20.

Ceres, a small village about eighty miles from Cape Town, is believed to be the only town in South Africa which is still controlled by the Municipal Act, framed in the time of William IV.

The small size of the Basuto pony is attributable to the climate. The breeding stock is kept, in tho mountains winter and summer, exposed to the wildest weather, and to extremes of heat and cold. The thermometer in winter often registers from ten to fifteen degrees qf frost in the rocky valleys and dry plateaux of the mountains, where the ponies, for th< most part, are bred. The spring and early summer are spent in recoveiing the condition lqst during winter, anc as the frosts begin in April, only a few months’ growth can be made yearly. The result is the small but hardy and thickest Basutoland pony.

Large numbers of donkeys, ap* parently having no owners, are running wild on the crown lands around Yudnamutana Hill, South Australia. The Government recently determined to sell them to anyone caring to undertake the task of capturing them. They were accordingly submitted at auction, and were knocked down to Mr. J. R. Corry for £lO ss. Mr. Corry intends to catch the animals by fences miles long converging to trap, as in kangaroq drives. ’ lie believes there are 2,000 donkeys there, and if he secures them, he will import a pure stallion from Arabia to improve the breed. Probably no famous bird has a smaller nest than the beautiful bird of paradise. For some inexplicable reason these beautiful birds are found only on the island of New Guinea and the neighbouring coasts of Australia, althqugh there are many other islands not far away which would seem equally suited to their requirements. 1595.