Wasps !

New Guinea Gets a New Instalment

REAL news from the Pacific front is scarce these days—or dwarfed by events in the Mediterranean.

Thus the Army’s agricultural situation in the Territories has been able to seep up through the war news and claim a two-column heading in a Melbourne daily. Wasps, we are told, have been rushed to New Guinea by plane to kill green bugs that threaten the food crops cultivated in Army-operated farms in forward areas.

One is moved to wonder what has become of the super-wasps that were native to most parts of New Guinea; but perhaps these wasps spurn such trivial

prey as green bugs—they prefer humans on the hoof.

About an inch and a half long, and described in Pidgin as a “benatang ’e savvy kai-kai man,” a New Guinea wasp lives up to his reputation and can deal out a sting that has the kick of a mule.

Natives give them a wide berth and Europeans, once bitten, do likewise.

It is reported that Army units have established 12 farms in forward areas in Northern Australia and New Guinea.

They are maintained by “B” class Army personnel and natives, who do not attempt to cultivate a large variety of fruit and vegetables, but concentrate upon those that have a high vitamin content.

Presumably, these Army gardeners are

discovering what civilian gardeners in the tropics found out long ago: that the first fruits from a garden are practically unmolested by insect pests, but subse quent crops are attacked by every eating, boring or destroying bug and wog that the jungle holds, and —in the words of the classics—that’s saying a mouthful!

The Governor of French Oceania, Lieut.-Colonel Georges Orselli, recently announced that General de Gaulle had awarded the Croix de la Liberation to M. Edouard Ahnne, Privy Counsellor of Tahiti, and to native chief Teriieroo Teriierooiterai. The news was conveyed to the Governor by cable from Admiral D’Argenlieu, who also sent his congratu lations to the recipients.