All Sorts

New Zealand Tablet, 30 June 1910, Page 1038

All Sorts

Mistress: 'Who rang the bell then, Katy?' ivaty: A boy, mum, lookin' for the wrong number.' Lady Shopper: 'Do you keep stationery?' about' ° r Walker : No ' madan V we continually walk

Among the birds the swan lives to be the oldest, in extreme cases reaching two hundred years. The falcon has been known .to live 162 years. Mistress (to new maid): ' Above all things, I expect you to be reticent.' Maid: 'Yes, ma'am, certainly. (Curiously): But what is there to be reticent about?' ; Gipsy Fortune-teller (seriously): 'Let me warn yousomebody s going to cross. your path.' Motorist: Don't you think you'd better.warn the other chap?' Little Willie: 'What is logic, pa?' Pa: 'Logic, my ?3,. ls yo .- line of argument in a controversy.' Little Willie: And what is sophistry ?' Pa: ' The other fellow's.' Magistrate: ' You say you are innocent. How do you explain the fact that you were found near the scene of the robbery with the stolen property in your hands?' Prisoner: lhat s what's puzzlin' me too, yer worship.' Caller: How pleased you must be to find that your new cook is a stayer.' ' Hostess: My dear,- don't mention it! She's a stayer all right, but unfortunately she's not a cook.' ever told it to you before.' ' Yes, indeed, it is.' •--". '-' :" - ■ - • • ' Then you haven't told it to me before.' . 'I think that counter clerk at the telegraph office is the coolest fellow I've ever met.' V 'What did he do?' ' Read over the message I was sending to my husband.' ' Father,' said Little Rollo, ' what is " Billingsgate " V ' It is a term, my son, that the other fellow applies to your plain, unvarnished expressions of justifiable indignation.' ■ , 'This bill for £SOO is altogether too high,' said the client. But didn't I prove you were insane, and get you acquitted?' responded the lawyer. Yes, you did; but you haven't yet proved that I am insane enough to pay this bill!' The well-known swellings which may be seen on willow leaves are caused by a wasp-like insect called a saw-fly. One egg is„ laid in each gall, and a little white grub cornea out of-it. The gall supplies enough food for the grub, or larva, until it grows up. When of full size, it leaves the gall, and retires into a hole in the ground, where it spins a silky cocoon. "

Of all peculiar sights, that of a moose eating grass is one of. the most extraordinary. The neck is so short and the legs are so long that the animal usually kneels in eating grass. True, they do not attempt it very often, for grass is by no means a staple with them; but even a moose likes a change of diet. The appearance of these huge and awkward creatures in this devotional attitude is not only interesting, but laughable. .... ££',-.':,.'■'

The Daddy Longlegs, that familiar, awkward fly, which has a habit of catching its unwieldly legs in spider's webs or other trifling obstructions wherever it goes, is the parent of the grub known to agriculturists by the name of ' Leather Jacket.' The latter is a dirty white, sometimes greenish, creature, with a fat, repulsive body without legs, and a black head armed with a powerful pair of jaws. In this, the larval stage, the Daddy Longlegs feeds on the stems and roots of corn, beans, turnips, grass, clover, cabbages, and, in fact, on almost every garden vegetable.. The damage it sometimes does is incredible. Whole acres of: corn frequently have to be re-sown, and thousands of cabbages replanted wherever this pest is at all numerous. ~; One of the most notable discoveries regarding the early history of Peru lias recently been made by Hewitt Myring, an English antiquarian. He collected 2000 specimens of pottery and weapons of the ancient Peruvians. Remains and relics of the early inhabitants of Peru, which are said by archeeologists to date from 4000 to 7000 8.C., were found by Mr. Myring under an old Incas burying ground when he was exploring in the mountains about 200 miles inland from Lima. Each grave contained the remains of food arid glazed clay jugs.-- The most valuable portion of this discovery of antiquities consists of the great urns, some of them six feet long and so heavy that it required three men to carry them. They were found buried beside mum* mies, and the majority of them had;the features of the dead man or woman delicately carved either on the upper part of the urn or on a solid stand beneath. > .