HERE AND THERE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18624, 28 November 1928, Page 8

HERE AND THERE.

AN EYE FOR EVERYTHING.

Th© Wonder of a Frog. A frog is a common object of the countryside, yet it is a wonderful work of Nature. In winter the frog plunges into a pond or ditch, embeds itself in the mud at the bottom, falls asleep, ceases to breathe, except through the skin, and remains seemingly dead, yet actually alive, for months. Its heart stops, its lungs are still, yet the water in contact with its skin gives it the minimum of oxygen that it needs to keep it alive. In gardens, where frogs live year after year, the animals have usually to hibernate without the protection of water. They sleep as soundly, buried in some secluded nook, as if in deep water, and although they are exposed to frost and bitter cold, they take no harm. They can bear extreme cold so long as the temperature is not so low as to freeze their tissues hard. Thus situated, their blood practically ceases to circulate; heart and lungs are inactive; the skin does the breathing, yet in the spring they are re-awakened to intense activity. Frogs are equally competent in self-defence when drought scorches their land. In the deserts of Central Australia there are frogs which bury themselves a foot deep in the soil beneath a dried-up stream. There they lie through the burning summer, inert as our hibernating frogs during winter, but their bodies are charged with moisture, taken in before the time of stress begins. The “frQg showers” of which we so often read are merely multitudes of frogs brought to light by rain after long hiding from drought.

The Day of the Horse. The day of the horse is by no means over. On the contrary, reports from Western Canada show that there is every possibility of horse raising becoming a more thriving industry than ever before. There has, with the steady development of agriculture, been an increased demand for heavy farm horses, 'while the market for saddle horses and hunters has grown in proportion to the opening up of Canada's natural .wonderlands. Yet not long ago the market had diminished to the point of disappearance. Thousands are being sent to Russia, where they seem particularly adapted to the work and conditions of that country, and during this year alone some 10,000 will have been shipped to the Republic. A number which were recently sent to the Balkan States as an experiment were snapped up by eager buyers before they had passed through Europe. k « Stole a Girl’s Hair. A mania for cutting off girls’ hair was said to be the weakness of John Smith (thirty-four), a merchant seaman, who was convicted at the Clerkenwell Police Court. He pleaded guilty to charges of assaulting Phyllis Allister, a schoolgirl, by cutting off her hair with scissors at Euston Road and to stealing her plait of hair, value £lO. A detective said that there were several convictions against Smith for cutting off girls' hair. He had offered that girl £lO in compensation. Smith said that he was willing to pay that after it was explained to him that the Magistrate would still do his duty. The police then handed over £lO to the prosecutrix on Smith’s behalf. Mr Dummett said that he would take that into consideration, but it seemed to him some form of sexual mania, and the public must be protected. For the assault Smith would go to prison for a month, and for the larceny for six months. X X X The Earth and Its People. A scientist has been calculating howmany people can be supported on the earth. He puts the total at over eight thousand million people, about four times the present population. The calculation has been made by Professor Shantz before the American Academy of Sciences. He puts the land area of the globe at something over 50 million square miles, including 22 million square miles of forest, 13 million square miles of grass or grain land, and 17 million square miles of desert. In his opinion 14 million square miles of forest land could be used for crops, six million of them for warm weather and eight million for cool weather crops. He believes that much that is now desert could be turned into grazing land. There are, he states, 26 million square miles which could be devoted to cool weather crops, such as wheat, rye, and oats, to warm weather grain crops, to cotton, or to grazing. Shantz allows two acres to each inhabitant, or 320 people to the square mile.

Ears And Age. It is stated by experts that the ears continue to grow in the later decades of life. Many old people have ears considerably larger than those of the mid-dle-aged. A woman who has small, shell-like ears at twenty years of age will be likely to possess medium sized ears 'at forty years, and possibly larger ones at sixty. Why ear? should go on growing all one's life is a mystery. The shape of an ear will be handed down, so to speak, from father to son for generation after generation with comparatively little modification. Some authorities assert that criminals are apt to possess a pecular kind of ear, which is recognisable by experts in such matters. Few people have a pair of ears perfectly matched; in most people the two differ not only in shape, but also in size. The age of a person may be judged with great accuracy by the ears, which after youth is past assume an increasing harshness of contour.