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New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10020, 6 January 1896, Page 5

Our Waitakerei correspondent writesA somewhat amusing and romantic incident occurred in this district last week. A settler accompanied by his two dogs was taking the rounds of his place, when, aa was a frequent occurrence, the dogs chased a rabbit. Leaving the dogs to thoir hunt, the settler proceeded on his way, expecting, as a mutter of course, the dogs would soon follow him. In fact, for that night, ha had almost forgotten that the dogs had nob returned with him. The next day the dogs, not having returned, a short search was made, and the dogs called without success, and a fear was entertained that) they had come to grief. Inquiries from adjoining settlers elicited no information. On the third day, however, when the settler and a friend were making the usual round, the cry of a dog in distress caught their ears, and as it was from the direction where the dogs wore last seon, hopes were entertained that they might be recovered, thinking probably the does had jumped down soma hole after a rabbit, and the egress from it was too email for them to gat through. As the searchers proceeded, the puzzle was as to the locality of the cries. Now they seemed near them, then they would appear as far off. Leaving his friend at a little distance, on account of the density of the undergrowth, the sottlir, after several futile attempts, at last got) close in the vicinity of the dogs, but he was more puzzled than ever. The cries seemed at one time under his feet, then at a considerable distance beyond him, now at the right, now the left. The two dogs' voices could be distinctly detected, but apparently in different localities. After several vain efforts to locato the animals, the settlor called for his friend to assist him. The friend, after some time, said they were up a tree, but the settler, who, though reference was made to a big kauri, laughed at the idea, but as tho other one insisted it was true, he took in tho situation, and there, 25 to 30 feet up a leaning hinau troo, overhanging a sharp declivity, was a dog's head out of a hole formed by a parasitical growth under the tree. The settler elimbed up, and was as much mystified to know how the dogs got there, as he was before to locate the dogs. The hole was on the side of the tree, and the nest under it. The tree was small, and no vantage ground to g#t in. The nest was large enough for the dogs to turn round in and change places; but it was with great difficulty the first dog was gob out, and passed down the treo. Altogether, it was a unique experience. The different sounds were accounted for from the fact that one dog cried from outside tho hole, the other from within, The Western Mail states that a fine trunk of a fossil tree stands upright in the offices of the Maerdy Coal Company, in the Rhondda Fach. It was taken out of the colliery 'some time ago, and is five feet to six feet in length, 1 and judging/roughly from its appearance, is over - two feet in ciroumference. • There is ' another tree in the colliery, and not" yet removed: lb stands on the side of jr road, and , only a . / portion of it : can be seen, 5 but - it; will, no doubt, be removed some day, so that people may have an opportunity "of j examining a natural monument 'of ' the glories of a . " Cymru Fu" forest. Glass bricks are being . largely > produced . : ' in Silesia for the walla of plant houses and , winter gardens. ■ They are hollow,; the cavity being. filled' with, rarefied : air and ; Reacting as a non-conductor of heat.' •• The use V of glass bricks means greater economy in > heating, as no ; windows are .required 'for . lighting purposes,. ' '