WINTER SCHOOL.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2278, 25 August 1908, Page 3

WINTER SCHOOL.

YESTERDAY’S SESSION. Tho session of tho winter school for teachers, which is being held in Gisborne, was continued- yesterday, a large number of teachers being ‘ill attendance. Tlie morning lectures were delivered by Mr. Clark, who dealt with mathematical figures, specialising the conic sections, and Mr. Grant continued liis lectures on agriculture as applied to ■schools. In the afternoon All'. Sidebottom lectured on voice culture, and Air Hamilton. Director of the Colonial Aluseum, lectured on “How to Collect Specimens,” dealing chiefly with zoological and botanical specimens, their distinguishing characteristics, and how to mount and preserve them. Ho also dealt with the many varieties of insect life that infest vegetables and flowers, and outlined a suitable course for their study.

EVENING LECTURE. The inhabitants of a duck pond or a stagnant pool are more numerous than there are human beings on earth, remarked the Rev. Dr Kennedy in addressing the large audience that filled His Majesty's Theatre last evening, to hear the reverend gentleman’s lecture given in connection with tlie winter school on "Rond Life.”

Dr. Kennedy is a most fluent speaker. and though a scientist of unusually high standing handled his subject so that the audience not only thoroughly understood what he was speaking about, but greatly -appreciated tlie simple language and dashes of humor that characterised the address. The lecturer told the story of how a schoolboy named Dick went to sleep on the bank of a duck pond, and dreamed that he fell in. AVlien he reached tlie water a sociable bull frog took him in hand and introduced him to the community, and Dick was delighted with what ho saw. Tho sight proved as interesting to tho audience as it did to tlie schoolboy, for the lecturer by aid of a magic lantern threw upon the screen micro-photographs of an infinite variety of insect life, and showed how hydra catches and feeds upon water fleas, how these creatures employ their tentacles to catch food, and explained that if the tenacles were separated from the body they reformed into hydra. Dr Kennedy also showed a pond insect known as case worms, -and told how they developed into a fly. Water beetles and their wonderful eyes were then shown, and ‘tlie lecturer caused to he thrown upon the screen a photograph of a hoy’s hand as a beetle would see it with compound eyes, and -a photograph of himself as the creature would see him except that the photograph was magnified 25 million times. Water scorpions and mosquitoes in their various stages of existence were also shown, and the doctor told the audience that the male mosquito did not bite, but the female mosquito had a fondness for biting, and often carried disease from one person to another. The water spider and his curious ingenuity in storing air in cells underneath the water, the may fly, and the dragon fly or horsestinger, wero also dealt with. Small glass tanks of water containing myriads of samples of pond life were also placed in tho lantern, and the audience were also able to seethe highly magnified images of the creatures moving about on the screen. Dr. Kennedy said lie had mere y opened one page in a great book of nature study, which was a most wonderfully interesting science, and would show children there were many possibilities to develop their observant faculties by studying life in stagnant pools.

At the conclusion a hearty vote of thanks was tendered to Dr. Kennedy for his lecture.

The winter school will be coucimied this morning and afternoon, and tonight the Rev. Dr. Kennedy will deliver a public lecture in HikMajesty s Theatre on the subject of meteorological instruments.