Curly-Tailed Horses

In Quest Of The Curly-Tailed Horses

Bugs, wogs and wrigglies have fascination for some people, ey fascinated Noel Monkman • half his life before the chance ne suddenly to make a career them. 1 the 30 years since, Monkman has shared his fascination with rest of the world, producing film :r film of underwater and reef from the coral islands of Aus lia’s Great Barrier Reef, le and his wife Kitty live on :en Island, one of the most utiful of the reef islands, where has a permanent laboratory, donkman is the pioneer of under photography in Australia, dany readers already know him 1 through his Escape to Adventure, ich tells the story of his diving leriences. Quest of the Curly led Horses is his autobiography, fhere is nothing dull about it, be rse there is nothing dull about ►nkman. Even his NZ boyhood r s, which in the normal run of obiographies the reader would be »py to pass swiftly over, make ourful reading. the product of a broken home was virtually held incommunicado one house or another, mostly un ndly ones where small boys with rgy were not tolerated. )n one occasion it got so intoler e that he and a mate took off

with their swag, and made headlines when they were discovered by search parties a week later living it up in a hut deep in the mountains. They had lived by shooting rabbits, which they had hung on a hook over a fire, fur and innards included, and simply gnawed at when they had decided they were sufficiently cooked. Nobody had explained to them the finer arts of skinning, but for six and seven-year-olds they had done pretty well.

What helped make life worth living for the youthful Monkman was his interest in the bugs and wogs of the pools—an interest satisfied more often than not in hours or days Stolen

from the schoolroom, At heart and by inclination he was a naturalist, but fate pushed him in a different direction, until he became in order navvy, photographer, soldier and musician—only finally to give up his music for science, or more correctly, to return to the science he had given up for music, For bug, wog and wriggly fans there is plenty of material of interest in Noel Monkman’s book—and many photographs of microscopic life. And those whose main interest is in find ing the recipe for a happy man will need to search no further, (quest op the curly-tailed HORSES. Angus and Robertson. 37/6.)

?el and Kitty Monkman, on Green Island.