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Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 18593, 2 January 1935, Page 13

In Great Britain there is now one motor vehicle to every 20 of the population, and one in every 15 persons is the possessor of a driving license. The Turihaua beach was visited this morning by a strange specimen of sea mammal, of substantial size and hearing an appenrance similar to that of a sea-elephant, save that it. was Without fur. It was sighted by the A,A. patrol, Mr. A. A. Franklin, who saw it lying on the dry sand well above the water-level, and believing •it to bo a seal in misfortune, alighted from his car to give it a helping hand back into the water. At his approach, however, tho beast reared up and assumed an appearauco similar to that ascribed to the Loch Ness- monster; moreover, it showed no sign of being in heed of assistance, lor it wallowed down to tho water through the sand, punctuating its efforts with repeated snarls at tho patrol. Its mouth was very large, and toothless, to all appearances; its hide was hairless save for a moustache which decorated its upper lip; and its tail was in four divisions, giving lateral and vertical control in the same way as the tailpiece of an aeroplane. Mr. Franklin inclined to the opinion that the stranger was a dugong out of its own latitudes, cast up by the surf when ill or exhausted, and sufficiently recovered when disturbed to make its escape...lt • was quite at home in tlx? sur#/ K Tmtf v mado its way to sea with plenty of power in tho strokes of its side-flippers.