All Sorts

New Zealand Tablet, 31 March 1910, Page 518

All Sorts

Few cowards know the extent of their fears, true-love * 8 destroyed by true friendship, and coquetry by The conquest of self is the grandest triumph that man can achieve. The strongest natures are ever the tenderest and the most pitiful. , The girl who knows how to cook may sometimes have to get the meals while her sister entertains the young man in the parlor, but she is the kind the wise man will marry. - Lawyer: ‘Did you take the prisoner apart?’ Witness: ‘ Yes, sir.’ Lawyer : ‘ What happened then ? ’ Witness ‘He told a disconnected story.’ Teacher: ‘Johnnie, where is the South Pole?’ Johnnie: ‘ Dunno.’ Teacher: ’You don’t know after all my teaching?’ Johnnie: ‘No. If Shackleton can’t find it there’s no use of my trying.’ ‘ This,’ said the rooster, as they strolled through the garden, ‘is an egg plant.’ ‘ Let us nip it in the bud,’ suggested the old hen, and thus discourage competition.’ ‘No, no,’ replied the rooster, ‘let us make it a party to the egg building union’s award.’ Visitor at Farm: ‘Well, this is unusual! Why, you are putting all the big apples in the bottom of the barrels and the little ones on top.’ Farmer: Yes. Those fruit dealers in the city are getting so sharp; they open the barrels from the bottom, to see whether we farmers be tryin’ to cheat them.’ That Cook and Peary are not the only explorers who have quarrelled over the genuineness of their discoveries is shown by the rival claims of Christopher Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci as to the discovery of America, and also as to whether Verrazzano or Hudson discovered the Hudson River. • Likewise the fight between Speke and Burton as to the discovery of the source of the Nile embroiled the scientific world for many years. Why are they called pyramids, grandpa?’ queried little Emerson, who was looking at a picture of those Egyptian wonders. ‘They are called pyramids, my boy,’ replied the old man, shamelessly, ‘ because they appear amid the general desolation of the desert.’ Whereupon the hall clock tried to hide its face with its hands. In the latest so-called work of fiction the writer gives us a harrowing account of the many afflictions with which the golden-haired heroine was stricken. We are told that the maiden dropped her lovely eyes. Later she cast her eyes far down the rocky slopes of the mountain-side. After she had rested them upon the topmost branches of a nearby tree, she let them fall upon the waters of a placid lake. Whether she found them after that we are not told, but we take it for granted that she did. A gentleman whose house was being repaired went one day to see how the job as getting on, and, observing a number of nails lying about, said to the carpenter employed on the work, Why don’t you take care of these nails They’ll certainly be lost.’ No, they won’t,’ replied the carpenter ;, ‘ you’ll find them in the bill.’ Most people are acquainted with the eggs of the cod—the cod’s roeas they are seen at the fishmonger’s during the early months of the year; but there are forms of fish eggs, or rather fish egg-cases, to be found on the beach which perhaps the, majority of seaside holiday-makers hardly recognise. Almost at any season of the year we may pick up a light yellowish mass composed of small capsules which, at first sight, may be taken for a piece of coarse sponge. If it be found above high-water mark it will most likely be somewhat brittle; but if it has only just been washed up it will bo very sponge-like to the touch. These little capsules are the egg-cases of the whelk. The spawning season is during the autumn, and each capsule, when extended, contains from five hundred to six hundred eggs. As bunches of the capsules vary in size from a small apple to a melon, the number of eggs produced annually by one fish will be seen to be enormous. It probably runs into millions. About half a dozen or so of the eggs in each capsule generally begin to develop before the rest, and these ‘young barbarians’ at once start feeding on their less wide-awake brothers and sisters. By means of this food the young fish is able to live within the egg-case, where it was hatched, until its shell is formed, and then, during the spring it sallies forth to fare for itself.