From Animal to Vegetable.

Otautau Standard and Wallace County Chronicle, Volume IV, Issue 168, 21 July 1908, Page 2

From Animal to Vegetable.

A vegetable caterpillar from the planting of. a true caterpillar is among the marvels of. the Pink Terrace region of New Zealand. Eating some tempting fungus spores on its way to its final burrow, the creature becomes transformed into a wbod-like mass Of fiingU6, with form and structure preserved. The caterpillar is now a veritable root, from which a stem shoots up Bin or lOin, dropping other fungus spores. • W

— Ridding an Island of Rats.— > An official report has been- issued dealing- with the anti-Tat experiments on the island of Little Cumbrae, Scotland. -It is 900 acres m extent. For years rats havo played havoq among the poultry belonging to the farmland last - s Christmas they attacked a large turkey: and killed it, and ate it clean, leaving nothing but. the bones. Seventeen tins of the preparation were used, and as each tin contains 130 bails altogether, some 2,200 small packets fcad been eaten, which should, under favorable circumstances, have accounted for 'at least 4,000 rah? Mr Parker, the lessee 'of the island, made an inspection of tire

island on March fi One rat was found m a rabbit trap, and it showed signs of the disease which is caused by the preparation. With this exception.* not a rat was to be seen, and Mr Parker reports that they had been practically exterminated.

— The. Japanese r.J Meat-eatere. — There was a time when the butcher was unknown m Japan, and religious scruples afforded protection to the "animals which provide us with tbe beef steak and mutton chop. That state of tilings has long passed with the westernising of Dai Nippon, and having taken to meat the Jdpanese"like it more and more, with the result that the price of beef is continually advancing. Last year 300 cattle .were imported purely for breeding purposes, . and its many its. 18,000 other's, destined for other ends, from C'orea. Nevertheless tliis large supply has not lowered prices. A merchant of Kobe attempted to import Australian meat, but be forgot- the refrigerating resources of civilisation, and though he was willing to sell low when his goods arrived, the Japanese -thought them much too " high."