Northern Māori win derby

Palmerston N, June 23: From start to finish the Maori match on the Show Grounds to-day afforded thrills aplenty to 3000 spectators. Fast, open, and clean rugby, with frequent passing movements, was the order of the day, but nearly all the tries were scored with apparently ridiculous ease. This was particularly the case with the southern side. The game was not only for the Te Mori Rose Bowl between the northern and southern Maori districts, but the selectors were in attendance to make the final choice of the team to tour France and Great Britain.

Although the final score was 30-17 in favour of the north, the southern representatives showed up better than it indicates. Particularly was this so in the second spell when, had they been as successful as the north in goal-kicking, the scores would have been very close.

Meteoric descent

Wanganui, June 23: The ascent of Ngauruhoe, which still shows signs of activity, was made from Whakapapa yesterday, the party consisting of Mr A. Murie (Wellington), A. Haywood (Wanganui), and Mr Ross (Shannon). Except for a strong wind the weather conditions were ideal, but the surface of the mountain was of solid ice and very treacherous, and it was necessary to cut steps for practically the whole distance. The crater was reached after a four hours’ climb and presented a wonderful spectacle, being intensely active over the whole area. Several new fissures and blow holes have been formed, the shape of the crater has been completely altered, and it appears to be much larger since the eruption. The descent began at 2pm. After going a short distance Mr Haywood had the misfortune to miss his foothold. His ice axe was wrenched from his hand, and he was precipitated several hundred feet down a rocky ice face and hurled over a 60-foot bluff. His meteoric course was arrested by a deep snow drift. He sustained a lacerated thigh and severe abrasions, but escaped serious injury. It was nothing short of miraculous that the other members of the expedition descended safely. They assisted the injured man back to the hut where first aid was rendered by a ranger, A. Cowling. The patient rapidly recovered from the shock and was able to get about this morning apparently none the worse for his nerve-racking experience. During his record-breaking descent Mr Haywood lost his camera containing the first photograph of the crater secured since the eruption.

Hard or soft

It would be very interesting to have some light thrown on how the moas hatched their eggs. Did they simply lay them and, like the ostrich, leave them to hatch in the sun? If so there must have been more sun in New Zealand then than now. One writer maintains that this was the manner that their eggs were hatched, and he further insists that it was the gradual cooling down of this country to its present climate that assisted greatly in the extinction of the moa — namely, that the climate became too cold to hatch the eggs, and the moas did not have the intelligence to adapt themselves to the changed conditions and sit on their eggs until they were hatched like any other self-respecting fowl. It is an ingenious suggestion, but this is hardly likely to be the reason of their extinction: the change would be so gradual moa would no doubt gradually have found some other means of propagating. — ODT, 24.6.1926