LETTER-BOX OPEN

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21763, 31 March 1934, Page 4 (Supplement)

LETTER-BOX OPEN

THE LITTLE CHINCHILLAS Dear Miss Morton,—l thought that you would be interested in some dear little Chinchilla rabbits that we saw the other day. 'The father rabbit and four half-grown ones in one pen and in another was the mother. At the end of the cage was the beginning of a burrow. The lady who was very kindly showing us them ilndid the totf* of the burrow for us to see. Every time the mother goes to nee the babies she carefully. blocks up the :01011th of the burrow so that the babies will not see the light, so we had to be very careful not to let more light in than ,we could help. All we saw were some little tiny grey things When the# are born they do not have any fur at all on them but when they are three weeks . old they come out of the burrow with all their grey fur nicel;? grown. These rabbits are reared for their fur, which is very valuable.—From your loving pen-friend. v Gwenda Millier, c.o. Miss Rhodes, Edmund Street, St. Hellers. THE THAMES COAST Dear Miss Morton,—Welcome home from your holiday! I hop<2 you have had a very enjoyable time. I missed your familiar signature from our page. I tihall look forward to more accounts of your holidays. For my holiday this year I went to a place which f think you know very well. We spent three very enjoyable weeks at Ptfru. on the Thames coast. I think Puiu is a very pretty place with its many pohutukawa and karaka trees. The karaka trees were a beautiful sight with their green and yellow berries. The pohutukawas had shed most of their blossoms, hut they looked remarkably healthy specimens. Some of them must have heen very, very old, for their trunks were very gnarled and of them at ome time must have been blown over and' their branches have taken root in their reclining positions nnd vet the tree itself looks so fresh One Sunday we motored to Tapu. a distance of six miles along a winding coastal road fringed here and there with . widespreading pohutukft'xa trer-B. They seemed / to be clinging tenaciously to the side of the road, as though they were afraid of the (sometimes angry) waves washing them away. All along the coast, were delightful little bays, some of them very rocky, others of golden sand. Could anyone fail to notice the beautiful archway bc-side the main road at Puru? It is fprmcd by n huge fallen pohutukawa on one side and a karnka tree on the other eide. with their branches meeting overhead. To look through this archway at the blue sea / beyond is indeed a pretty picture.— From your loving pen-friend, Margaret GerruQd, Rnf.ntvorn fage 12). A HOLIDAY TOUR Dtar Miss Morton,—l am writing to tell you how I spent a part of my holidays. Mother took fiollo and me to Auckland, where we stayed a week and hud a wonderful time. We went round all the beaches and up to the top of Titirangi and Mount Eden and we spent a morning at the museum. Then we came out to Weymouth and •tayed a couple of days then on to Papakura for a couple of days and left there at six' o'clock on Saturday morning to go in through the Huiiua Gorge to my uncle's place It was beautiful L'oing in throii'/h the bush in the enily morning. Mother showed us the house on " Red Hill " where ehe first went to your mother's Sunday school. We stayed in Hunua nearly a week and on Anniversary Day we walked for miles over the hills to a place where we could get a beautiful view of the Manukau Harbour. From Hunua we went to Karaka, where we had great fun fishing for eels, we caught two and mum cooked the smallest one for breakfast ar.id we enjoyed it very much. We drove ii from Karaka (six mik-3) to Papakura on the Snr.dny morning in time to ctitch the excursion train to Hamilton where dad met us and we were home in time for dinner, and we started school next :v morning. Good-bye.—From your new penfriend. Murray Lewis. Box 35 Newstead, Hamilton.