All Sorts

New Zealand Tablet, 21 April 1910, Page 638

All Sorts

The tropical seas contain a larger percentage of salt than those of the more northern latitudes. The average duration of life in India is twenty-four years. In England it is forty-four years. . . The smallest bird is an East India humming bird, which is hardly larger than an ordinary horse-fly. Sea water contains silver in considerable quantities. It is often found deposited on the copper sheathing of ships. ■ Some boas and pythons have horny hooks on the sides of the body, which seem to be the rudiments of a pair of hind legs. ' - The emigration records show that last year 316,337 emigrants left the ' German ports, an increase of 146,661 over 1908. ' - ‘How old is your child asked a conductor. ‘Seven,’ replied the mother. As the conductor passed up the crow ded car the little boy called after him, And mother’s 38 ’ Extract from Mr. Roosevelt’s letter to the Bureau of Fisheries : ‘ The water is fairly temperate. It is slightly alkaline, but it is habitually drunk.’ Gladys: ‘ Why are you going to all that trouble to open that letter so carefully, . Maud ? ’ Maud ‘Oh, I had a quarrel with George, and intend to send back his letter unopened; but I just thought I would see what he said before I returned it.’ Father: ‘And how are you getting on at school, Johnny?’ Boy: ‘Oh, I have learned to say “Thank you “If you please” in French.’ Father: ‘That is more than you ever learned in English.’ In the consumption of coffee and cocoa the United States leads the world, while it holds third rank among the nations in its imports of tea. Its imports amount to more than one-third of the coffee, nearly one-fourth of the cocoa, and about one-seventh of the tea entering the world’s markets. A cantankerous judge, after hearing a flowery discourse from a pretentious young barrister, advised him to pluck out some of the feathers from the wings of his imagination and put them into the tail of his judgment. A clever but very eccentric man, who sings comic songs with a great deal of action, was singing one day at a concert given at a lunatic asylum. When he had finished, an old woman exclaimed with a sigh, ‘ And to think I’m in and he’s out I ’ • Dr, Oliver Wendell Holmes once made an address in his native town to a medical association. The president of the association _ was the son of a man who had been the druggist of the village when Dr. Holmes had studied medicine there. ‘lt is good to look at this young man,’ said the genial autocrat, ‘ and trace his father’s liniments in his face.’ . • - ■ .• . ‘ Why did you never marry, Tom ? ’ inquired the young Benedict of the old bachelor. ‘Well, you see,’ replied the single one, ‘ when I was quite young I resolved that I wouldn’t marry until I found an ideal woman. I was difficult to please, but after many | years I found her.’ Lucky beggar b And then——’ ‘She was looking for an ideal man,’ replied the bachelor sadly. One real friend, a friend that sticketh closer than a brother, hath the rhinoceros, or ‘ chukuru/ as the natives in some parts of Africa call him. This is none other than a pretty grey bird, about as large as a thrush, which never leaves its big, ugly patron— the bird’s eyes, though, Rhino may seem a model of beauty— night; or day, save to build her nest and rear her young. It spends its time on the back of both rhinoceros and hippopotamus, ridding them of their insect pests. What is more, it warns chukuru of coming danger. Should he be asleep, and a hunter draw near, the bird screams in his ear. The huge creature knows well what that cry means, and starts to his feet and bolts as fast as he can, the bird, perhaps several of —perched on his back. Whenever a bullet hits its hide, up flies the bird some six feet into the air, with a scream, but only to settle in a minute or two on, its wonted place. One wouldn’t think there was so much romance about a rhinoceros.