NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11582, 21 February 1901, Page 6

NEWS IN BRIEF.

St. Patrick's Day falls on a Sunday this year. The imports and exports of Fiji, for 1900, amounted to over £900,000. A few cases of typhoid fever have been reported in Wanganui recently. The New Zealand University Senate opened its session yesterday. The food crops in* Fiji are said to be scarce consequent upon last year's drought. The Union Steamship Company's steamer Taviuni arrived yesterday from Fiji. Rosella won the principal race at the Takapuna Jockev Club's summer meeting yesterday. The Anglican and Roman Catholic churches held the usual Ash Wednesday services vesterday. The" Wellington Education Board loses £3000 from the current quarter's revenue owing to decreased attendance. The post year's income of the New Zealand University Senate amounted to £7080 2s Bd, : and expenditure to £7458 lis lOd. Five Auckland members of the New Zealand contingents arrived back in Auckland vejterday, invalided from South Africa. A large number of sheep from the North Island are now being landed at Picton and driven overland to the Christchurch market. We have to acknowledge the receipt of a neat little copy of the ocean mail sen-ices for 1901. issued by the New Zealand Post Office. The first, draft of the Seventh Contingent will probably consist of 300 men. It is understood that three further batches of 300 will be sent at intervals. Upwards of 230 applications have been received by the local authorities from volunteers anxious to serve with the Seventh Contingent for South Africa. The selection of Auckland's section of the Seventh Contingent takes place to-night at the Drill Hall. "The number of volunteers to be selected is limited to 66. Five of the Imperial troops who failed to leave in the Britannic on Tuesday were yesterday taken by Captain Reid. District Adjutant, to the "North Shore Artillery Barracks. The South Canterbury .Acclimatisation Society has presented the Wellington Society with 20 young paradise ducks for breeding purposes." They are to be sent to the Masterton pone?. Something like a thousand wild horses are said to lave been shot down within the last tew motnhs in the Lake Taupo district. The commercial value of the animals is 2s 6d for a mane and tail.

A very rare fish, a lampas. was recently caught in the Mangapaniki River, at Tahoraite. In place of a mouth it has blowholes and a sucking apparatus, by means of which it can climb rocks. The Maoris greatly prize this curious fish.

Several members of the South Canterbury Acclimatisation Society recently visited a bush reserve of 800 acres at the foot of ;he Hunter Hills, and came tc the conclusion that the reserve would be suitable ior the liberation of wallabies and opossums. The .Nelson Colonist regrets to learn from the Golden Bay district that some, at all events., of the oyster beds in that bay have been destroyed by the slime which made its appearance in such quantities a short time ago. After dredging a bed on which therewere a large quantity of fine oysters at tinend of last season, one operator returned with less than three dozen live oysters. It is feared that the oysters in Tasman Bay have also suffered largely.

In recognition of Messrs. Orr and Lodder throwing open McNab's Gardens for the entertainment of the Imperial troops, in Wellington, the Premier has forwarded the following letter to the firm : —"On behalf of the colony I thank you very sincerely for placing your beautiful gardens in the hands of the Government for the purpose of entertaining the Imperial troops. They were quite delighted, and the scenery reminded them of spots in the dear old Motherland from which they are at the present moment so far away.—(Signed) R. J. Seddon."