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New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 9832, 29 May 1895, Page 5

Tho handsome silver cup presented by the Union Steamship Company, as a trophy to the committee of the Suburban Poultry Fanciers' Club, for competition ab the club's forthcoming Championship Gold Medal Show, is attracting a good deal of attention, among exhibitors especially. It is displayed in the shop window of Messrs. Champtaloup and Cooper. The exhibitors are getting their birds into the beat of condition, for the purpose of competing, and speculation is freely indulged in as to who will be the first to have thoir name inscribed on the cup. The cup is for competition amongst white Leghorn cocks or cockerels, and has to bo won twice in succession, or three times ab intervals.

Ib is very interesting to learn how plants of various kinds have been introduced into new countries. For instance, it is said that the kaka-beak — New Zealand glory pea, as it is termed in Englandwas introduced to this colony by a shipwrecked vessel from South America. The introduction of the coffee plant into Central Africa by Mr. Buchanan, by slips of a plant in the Botanic Garden of Edinburgh, calls to mind the " generous Frenchman" who bore ib to Martinique. The Amaryllis lily of the Channel Islands was sown on tho island of Jersey by a ship bringing the bulbs in boxes from Japan. The Xanthium ojao found its way to Cane Colony through a shipwreck. An asclepiad from Tahiti was planted in New Caledonia by a gendarme, who carried some of the seeds in a pelleb of cotton inside his ear, and threw the pelleb away on landing in New Caledonia. A butterfly, which feeds on it, was also introduced into those islands by an accident, and both plant and insect are now rather a plague to the colony. The rhinoceros plant, which was formerly limited to the western part of the Cape, now infests all the pastures of that region.