"Millions Of Snails"

THERE now are countless millions of snails in New Ireland and New Britain, said Flight-Sergeant J. R.

Begg, in Christchurch, NZ. He has just returned from New Guinea after making a search for the remains of New Zealand airmen lost there in the war.

He said that the snails are now a menace to native food supplies; that, after a shower, there are about three snails to every square foot of roadway in New Britain; and that the larger shells do not even crack under the weight of a jeep.

Their Scientific History

THE manner in which the giant snails, achatina fulica, spread throughout the East and down into the Pacific

from their original home in Zanzibar, in the Indian Ocean, was described to “NZ Herald”, by Mr. A, W. B. Powell, assistant director of the Auckland Museum. Mr.

Powell said the snails were no longer to be found in Zanzibar. About 1810 they were accidentally introduced to Mauritius and Madagascar and then they were car ried in coffee plants to Ceylon and Ben gal.

They rapidly spread throughout India by climbing on trains and falling off over the country, and they gradually reached Burma, Malaya, Borneo and Sarawak.

The snails had reached Hong Kong when war broke out, and the Japanese, real ising their food value, introduced them into their mandated islands and later into New Britain and New Ireland.

Mr. Powell said that the largest land snail, 9 in. long, was to be found on the Gold Coast of West Africa. The largest

New Zealand snail, 4 in. long, was on the Three Kings Group. (See article page 33 this issue) Mr. G. O. C. Barclay, who has been 22 years with the Vacuum Oil Company, 15 of them as NSW Advertising manager, resigned from the Company on September 12. He will join a firm of motor traders in Lismore, NSW.

Some 68 years ago, William Bairstow Ingham was murdered by natives in New Guinea. He was a sugar planter, sawmill proprietor, North Queensland coloniser.

He was educated at Cambridge, and was an engineer by profession. He took a prominent part in the (Development of Port Douglas, Cairns and Ingham. The town of Ingham was named in his honour.