Sepik

Crocodile Hunting on the Sepik

Queensland Men Are Interested

I'IHE crocodile hunting season on the Sepik River, New Guinea, usually begins about June and extends throughout the low-water season to about September.

During this period, hundreds of croco diles are caught by the natives—some by spearing, some caught on hooks, some in traps, snares and nooses, and some are caught alive when they are sunbaking.

The local people tell many apparently in credible stories of croc-hunting to visitors.

The catch is that the more incredible the story, generally the truer it is.

These stories seem now to have reached the Australian mainland and this year a Queensland hunter, a Mr. N. Guinio, decided he would try his luck with us.

He arrived here on the muddy banks of the Sepik about the beginning of May -f-but, unfortunately, without his gun— that had been confiscated by the Customs men at Lae, although those in Port Moresby took a more lenient view.

However, even without his trusty .303, his visit is of great value to local croco dile hunting. In many villages he has shown the natives how to skin the rep tiles properly, and how to dry the hides.

These hides will later be collected .aid sent to a firm of hide-buvers in Sydney.

If there are enough of them, perhaps the price of crocodile skin shoes and handbags will fall next year.

Among the professional native hunters of the “puk-puk” there is great en thusiasm for the scheme, and Mr. Guinio is a welcome and popular figure.—

“Mossie.”

Death of Henri Walker

THE Walker family, of Tahiti, in June received news that M. Henri Walker died in a military hospital in France, as the result of injuries received while he was a member of the French Air Force, engaged in a raid over Germany.

He leaves a widow and two children.

The Walker family, now French, is of British stock. Mr. William Walker, a Londoner, met and married in Tahiti a Miss Henry. They had several children, and their descendants are widely known and highly respected, in French Oceania.

Archbishop Halse, head of the Anglican Church, Queensland, returned to Bris bane by plane on June 21, after a 10-days’ tour by lugger of the Torres Strait Islands. He was accompanied by the Rev. Shevill. In honour of the Archbishop’s visit, feasts and tribal dances were arranged by natives: and, included in his gifts, was a pastoral staff of wongal wood inset with mother-of pearl.