NEW EXHIBITS IN MUSEUM

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21254, 6 August 1932, Page 11

NEW EXHIBITS IN MUSEUM

S CURIOUS BIRDS' NESTS < 1 SOUTH AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES i t An interesting recent addition to the ' series of strange birds' nests in the Auckland War Memorial Museum is a small group showing a pair of Megapodes, or mound-builders, with their primitive "nest." The birds are from Niuaafou or Tin Can Island, in the Tongan Group, where they are called "Malau," and were presented to the museum by Mrs. Ross, < of Rcmuera. These curious birds, rather like slender turkeys in build, enlist the aid of the tropical".sun as an incubator and simply ' bury their eggs in a mound of sand. The young are then hatched in a feathered condition, and, after extricating themselves from their sandy covering, fly away ! almost immediately. Several interesting Central and South American antiquities have been added to the museum, display. They comprise four spirit flasks in pottery made by the Inca people of Peru, and some pieces of early Spanish colonial silver from Mexico, deposited by Mr. Ralph Austin. Two examples of the "Billies and Charlies" fraudulent representations, or ; rather misrepresentations, of medieval plaques, made to be planted in the old Thames Embankment works, have bteen given, one by Mr. L. C. Brabant and the other by Mr. L. T. Griffin. A valuable addition to the war collection is a water colour painting by the late Sapper H. Moore Jones, of Anzac Cove, Gallipoli, presented by Mrs. J. P. Campbell. Mr. W. B. Carter has presented two fine fish spears from the Solomon Islands, and Mr. J. D. Richardson has given a collection of natural history lantern slides.