HERE AND THERE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18615, 17 November 1928, Page 4

HERE AND THERE.

AN EYE FOR EVERYTHING.

Tibetan Prayer Wheels. In the “gompas,” or worshipping places, of Tibet there are huge prayerwheels which the devout may turn on payment of a small fee. A prayerwheel eight feet high may contain the same nantra (prayer) about a hundred million times, so compact is the thin paper on which the prayer is printed. Thus a few turns means that the prayer has been “uttered” a billion times or more. The chief prayer used is “Om Mani Padma Hum” (“O God! The Lotus-Jewel, Hail!’’) This is repeated daily throughout Tibet and Northern India to an extent which defies calculation. sc st « Growing a New Suit! Once the adult stage is reached, crab, lobster and crayfish are periodically faced by a serious problem. Each must have more room to grow than the inelastic shell will allow. The shell cannot expand, eo the crustacean crawls out of it. Its flesh becomes flaccid and watery, the limbs are withdrawn, the carapace splits, and the strong warrior of an hour before becomes as weak as an egg without its shell. But wounds sustained in the operation soon heal. The dismembered animal grows prodigiously, while the skin rapidly hardens into shell once more. In a very short time crab or lobster becomes fit and well for the business of life again. si Si si The Trombone. The trombone, in its own place and properly handled by composer and performer, is a fine instrument of music. One can have too much of a good thing, nevertheless—although some jazz-band trombonists and theatreorchestra conductors do not seem to think so. Mozart once frightened an opera manager by his insistence on trombones. He wrote for three of them on his score: “Trombones 1 2 3.” The manager, sighting these figures, screamed, “Impossible! A hundred and twenty-three trombones! My God! ” —and rushed away to spread the dreadful news. » K SS Tiny Pests. Man has continually to wage a tre-. mendous battle against the insects which devour his crops and ruin his industries. In this country 90 per cent of the apples in an orchard are sometimes ruined by the cod]in moth, while in France one-third of the wine-growing industry was ruined in less than twenty years by the phylloxera. The cattle tick has been the cause of £1,500,000 loss yearly to Australian cattle owners, and there is now in the States an area of 210,000 square miles of fine grazing land where J cattle cannot be raised owing to the prevalence of the tick. The effect of the tick on cattle is similar to that of the mosquito on man — it either kills or leaves its victim a living skeleton.