A Fish Story
pp. 17-18 · Read in the full issue
A SYDNEY writer has resuscitated the story of how certain rats in Papua catch fish, as told by C.A.W. Monck ton.
Monckton had noticed plenty of rats on a small barren island, devoid of food.
He wondered how the rats managed to subsist. One morning, before breakfast, he noticed rats going down to the edge of the reef— lank, hungry-looking brutes. They squatted on a piece of coral right on the water’s edge, and dangled their
tails in the water. Suddenly one rat was seen to make a violent spring of about a yard, and, as he landed, there was a crab clinging to his tail.
This was soon consumed, and the fish ing began again—a new use for tails, this, surely.
Dr. W. C. Klein, in a personal letter from The Hague, Holland, states that, after several years of strenuous work, he has laid down the secretaryship of the New Guinea Committee, which has been organising the activities of colonising in terests in Dutch New Guinea. Dr. Klein, however, will continue to work in the in terests of Dutch New Guinea, but on a reduced scale.
THE gentleman who has signed the name “Gabusulawe of the Solomons” to a very long letter, in which he de fends the “civilisation” of primitive peoples, in comparison with European civilisation, is informed that even the editor of this unorthodox journal can not accept such material for publication unless he knows the identity of the writer!
The letter is too long for publication, any way.