Fifteen miles north of Milford Sound, 200 miles south of Hokitika, and 3 to 4 miles inland from Martins Bay on the shores of picturesque Lake McKerrow, there stand today the gaunt lingering remains of Jamestown, a paper village, that nearly 100 years ago was to have been the genesis of a Greater Otago. In the late 1860s when the gold yield was falling away, the Provincial Council, inspired by its Superintendent, James Macandrew, began to dream of expanded frontiers. Hopes settled on the western coast of the province, and despite an unfavourable report in 1867 by a competent surveyor, W. G. Wright, a Select Committee in 1868 recommended the founding of a new settlement at Martins Bay. The Superintendent, who was patently disinclined to be discouraged by the Wright report, reacted enthusiastically to the Committee's recommendation. Jamestown would be built and the neighbouring country settled. Thus it was that in 1870, obsessed by visions of fishing, timber, shipbuilding, and general farming industries pioneered by tough Canadian backwoodsmen and sturdy immigrants from Nova Scotia and the Orkney and Shetland Islands, Macandrew dispatched an advance guard of surveyors and settlers from Port Chalmers to spy out the land. A site for Jamestown was fixed on the edge of Lake McKerrow, a couple of miles from the spot where the Lower Hollyford River begins its 4-mile course from the lake to the sea at Martins Bay. The Otago Waste Lands Act was amended to provide free grants of 100-acre lots of land over an area not exceeding 100,000 acres, and work began on the surveying of town, suburban, and rural allotments. The initial expedition, however, was casually conceived and as casually carried out, and it required only a few characteristic setbacks completely to seal the doom of the project. Road communication was promised from Lake Wakatipu to Lake McKerrow over the Greenstone Saddle. But though a grant of £1,500 was made for the purpose and a 60-mile route was surveyed, it was to be 16 years before even a bridle track was cut to Martins Bay.

From the outset the first settlers found their new home a beautiful but inhospitable refuge. Hardship, privations, and what they called “the great starvation” came swiftly. Their only line of communication and supply was a subsidised two-monthly shipping service provided by the Union Steam Ship Co. With a steady diet of fish, wekas, kiwis, and pigeons, and all other supplies delivered tardily at exorbitant prices, the little community was soon in difficult straits. To make matters worse, Macandrew, while providing free land, had given no thought to an even greater necessity – capital for land development, building, and timber milling. Not surprisingly, the Jamestown venture proved a fiasco, and Macandrew's dream of a provincial Otago stretching from coast to coast and extending from the Waitaki River to Foveaux Strait soon faded. But strangely enough settlers still came. The pioneer group of 1870 was headed by William Webb, John Robertson, and Henry Homer (after whom the Homer Saddle and Tunnel are named). The pitsaws were once more busy producing timber for housing, and the acreage under crop increased steadily, but about this time the shipping service was discontinued and, as the road had still to be commenced, Jamestown had to rely on the extremely irregular calls of a Government paddle steamer. The inevitable happened. A steady exodus began, and by 1879 the struggle was over. Tilled fields went back to bush and scrub, the rough dwellings were deserted and sank into decay, and before the decade came to an end only sagging eaves and gaping doors and windows remained as a reminder of what might have been.

The name Jamestown was given in honour of Superintendent of Otago, James Macandrew.

by Ronald Jones, Journalist and Script Writer, New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation, Wellington.

• History of Otago, McLintock, A. H. (1949)
• Pioneers of Martins Bay, McKenzie, Alice (1952).

(1884–1965).

Missionary.

A new biography of James, Annie Isabella appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Annie Isabella James was born on 22 April 1884 at Herbert, North Otago, her parents being very early farmers of the district. She was one of a family of 12, six boys and six girls, and, in the tradition of most farmers' children in those days, left primary school to assist on the farm. From her childhood she had nursed the idea of becoming a missionary in China, which was then being opened up to Christian missions. When her mother died in childbirth her eldest sister took charge of the home and Annie decided to go to Dunedin to seek training. She secured employment as a domestic in a Magistrate's home and attended St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, which was then under the care of a famous minister, the Rev. Dr Rutherford Waddell, a distinguished preacher, writer, and social worker.

When she first approached an official of the church, she was rebuffed on account of her lack of education and background, but eventually she was able to enter the training institute and completed her course by 1911. She was given her first instruction in Cantonese by the Rev. Alexander Don, who had pioneered Christian work among the Chinese on the goldfields of Central Otago and had been entrusted by them to carry gold and messages to their relatives in Canton. This work had in fact opened South China to Christian mission work and Annie James received the benefit of his first-hand experience. She sailed on the SS Eastern, reaching China in 1912. Dr Sun had overthrown the Manchu Dynasty and the Nationalist movement was growing amid very disturbed conditions. Annie James began itinerant work in the villages until a break in her health forced a temporary return to New Zealand, where she received Karitane and maternity training. Back in China, she was soon in a ward in the newly opened Kong Chuen Hospital, until the arrival of fresh staff allowed her to go 50 miles into the hinterland to the market town of Kaai Hau, in which she established the Hospital of Universal Love which won the deep affection of the countryside. Known as Tse Koo, she was given the honorary title “Mother of the Tsung Fa District”. The Japanese invasion of China in 1937 brought disaster to the hospital, which was first bombed and then used as military barracks. Tse Koo organised 40 carriers and created a mobile hospital, which moved with the fortunes of war, always in no man's land between the enemy fronts, and with no financial help or contact with the outside world for seven years. In New Zealand she was believed to be dead. Her experiences and sufferings during this period defy description.

When peace was declared, Annie James found her way back to New Zealand, staying only long enough to recuperate before setting out again for Kaai Hau with new equipment to rebuild the hospital. For five more years the work prospered until the hospital was overwhelmed by the southern drive of the Red Army. For a time the Chinese Communists dared not touch her, but as their hold increased on the town accusations were made and she was arrested and charged with mass murder. Stoutly denying the absurd charge, she was placed in a tiny cell beneath the stairway of the Red headquarters and for many weeks endured great humiliation and mental torture. When she was condemned to a public trial she resigned herself to death, but when the day came all the inhabitants of Kaai Hau shut themselves indoors and refused to appear. After her fourth private trial her health became most precarious, not only by physical privation but also by the attempts to “brainwash” her. It appears that she was finally released for political reasons when she was on the point of dying. She lived for a time in Hong Kong, but finally returned to Dunedin with one of her four adopted Chinese children. She was recommended for the award of the M.B.E. in 1939. This was granted in 1942 and she was invested at Government House, Wellington, on 29 March 1952. Today she is regarded as one of the truly great figures of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand.

Annie James died at Auckland on 6 February 1965.

by Frederick Roy Belmer, M.A., Presbyterian Minister, Port Chalmers.

• I Was in Prison, James, A. I. (1952)
• The Teeth of the Dragon, Belmer, R. (1964)
• Tse Koo – a Heroine of China, MacDiarmid, D. N. (1945)
• Never a Dull Moment, Snowden, Rita (1948).

(1832–89).

Farmer, forest ranger, and member of Parliament.

William Jackson was born in the Yorkshire village of Green Hammerton in 1832. His father, Samuel Jackson, had been what was known as “a warm man”, but he was a victim of hard times in the West Riding, and by the time William had reached an age of independence, which developed earlier in the Yorkshire of those days than it does today, he could see little future before him in the family surroundings. Consequently he attached himself to an emigrant party which reached New Zealand in the early fifties, and with more fatalism than liking he secured a land holding in the Papakura area and commenced farming. The ferment in the Waikato region of the late fifties intrigued him from the start, and when the Waikato wars broke out in 1862, he forsook the ploughshare for the sword. He was an early volunteer and ranged far and wide in the guerilla warfare of the time. He first drew attention to himself with some distinguished leadership at Ring's Redoubt at Wairoa in 1862, and in the following year he was authorised to raise a company of 60 for the Forest Rangers. This suited his adventurous disposition perfectly, and for two years he led his polyglot force wherever emergency called. The Wairoa Forest, the Hunua Ranges, Mauku, Waiari, and Orakau were among his battlegrounds, and when the fighting died away he reluctantly laid down his arms with the rank of major and accepted a military land grant to replace his neglected Papakura demesne. Despairing of anything more exciting, he entered politics in 1872 as a member for Waikato in the Stafford Government, New Zealand's fifth parliament, but in 1875 he returned to farming. Twelve years later he was back in the House of Representatives as member for Waiapu and survived two years of the eventful tenth parliament of the Atkinson Ministry. He was lost at sea on the voyage between Wellington and Auckland on 29 September 1889.

Jackson was as vigorous a politician as he had been a soldier. He made his presence felt among the Atkinson Ministry, in which he was whip for three sessions, and he not infrequently proved a thorn in the side of the administration by his assiduous championing, in season and out, of the rights of the men who had fought in the Maori wars and who, at the end of hostilities, found themselves with neither possessions nor prospects. Captain Jackson was more a guerrilla than a trained soldier, and everything he achieved in the field was the result of unorthodoxy of a kind that irked and, sometimes, incensed the hard core of regular soldiers who commanded most of the colonial detachments. Thus he had much in common with von Tempsky.

by Ronald Jones, Journalist and Script Writer, New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation, Wellington.

• New Zealand Herald, 30 Sep 1889 (Obit).

(1926– ).

Ballerina.

Rowena Othlie Jackson was born at Invercargill on 24 March 1926, the daughter of William Ernest Jackson and Lilliane Jane, née Solomon. She was educated at Epsom Girls' Grammar School, Auckland, and in 1941 won the first Royal Academy of Dancing Scholarship in New Zealand. In 1946 she attended the Sadler's Wells School and later in the same year joined the Sadler's Wells (now the Royal Ballet) Co. winning the Adeline Genée Gold Medal in 1947. From 1954 to 1959 she was a ballerina with the Royal Ballet and toured extensively, visiting Europe, America, and Australia. She gave dance recitals in New Zealand in 1954 and 1957. On 4 February 1958 Rowena Jackson married Philip Chatfield. She retired from the Royal Ballet in 1959 and returned to New Zealand, where she is artistic director of the New Zealand Ballet Co. She was awarded the M.B.E. in 1961.

A Dictionary of Modern Ballet (1959) says of her: “Rowena Jackson has a special gift for fast and brilliant turns. She holds the world record for multiple fouettés performed sur place. She has danced a sensitive Odette-Odile, a good Aurora and a likeable Swanhilda. Invaluable in secondary roles, her speed, ease and precision are best seen in the Bluebird pas de deux, as one of the “Blue Girls” in Les Patineurs, and in the solos which Ashton composed for her in Variations on a Theme of Purcell and Birthday Offering. She danced Giselle for the first time in 1958”.

Gymnastics as a part of physical training has been familiar to New Zealand schoolboys ever since gymnasiums were set up in colleges and high schools. More recently the youth work of such organisations as the Young Men's and Young Women's Christian Associations, Boys' and Girls' Brigades, and district clubs has introduced gymnastics to boys and girls of all ages. Most New Zealand towns now have some gymnastic facilities for their people.

It is, however, only comparatively recently that gymnastics have been nationally organised. In October 1956 the New Zealand Gymnastic Association was properly constituted by the combined efforts of the three existing associations in Auckland, Hamilton, and Taranaki. Auckland has had an association since 1948, Hamilton since 1954, and Taranaki since 1955.

For some time the national development of the sport was slow. But the influence of the Hungarian-born first president, A. Pillich, and his German wife, with their wide knowledge and advice, gradually spread a knowledge of international gymnastic trends through most districts. A notable development at this stage was the opening of club membership to women. They quickly made their presence felt and brought with them a new wave of enthusiasm. A State grant in 1958 made possible a system of incentive awards for skill in gymnastic fundamentals. Under this scheme 3,000 awards are made annually to boys and girls. Successful national championships have been held every year since 1958.

Fourteen district associations, as well as many individual clubs, are now affiliated with the New Zealand association. The total membership is over 16,500, including children, teenagers, and adults. The national association's code of gymnastics is practised in some form in every city and borough, and the New Zealand association is affiliated to the Fédration Internationale de Gymnastique and the New Zealand British Empire and Olympic Games Association.

Overseas competition has been confined to privately sponsored tours of Australian centres by a men's team in 1957 and a squad of women in 1960. Both gained excellent results. The men's team included A. McNabb who won the inter-university gymnastic competition at Cambridge (England) in 1954 and, as captain of the Cambridge Union Gymnastic Club, was runner-up in the following year. In 1964 New Zealand was represented at the Olympic Games by a team of three women gymnasts who were unplaced.

(1861–1940).

Author, naturalist, and farmer.

A new biography of Guthrie-Smith, William Herbert appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

William Herbert Guthrie-Smith was born at Helensburgh on the Clyde in Scotland on 13 March 1861. His father, John Guthrie-Smith, of Mugdock Castle, Stirlingshire, who had married into the Dennistoun family, was partner in a firm of insurance brokers. Herbert — his first Christian name was not used — received his early education at home from a tutor. He afterwards went to an English preparatory school and then to Rugby, where he gained no special distinction either at work or play. His parents had some thought of sending him to Cambridge, but the idea was eventually dismissed in favour of allowing him to go to New Zealand where, it was then believed, a moderate fortune at least might be won within a reasonably short time. In 1880, accompanied by Arthur Cunningham, a Rugby friend, Guthrie-Smith sailed for New Zealand, and on arrival went to work as cadet on the estate of his uncle, George Dennistoun, of Peel Forest Station, South Canterbury. Two years later he and Cunningham jointly bought Tutira estate in Hawke's Bay for £9,750, the amount for which it was mortgaged.

The economic depression that was to last until the turn of the century had just begun. Tutira's 24,000 acres were clothed mainly with bracken and grass grew only in small patches. The merino sheep with which the station was stocked were not suitable for the type of country. An enormous annual death rate reduced their numbers and, after three or four years of unprofitable partnership, Cunningham paid £600 in reduction of the joint liability and relinquished his share in Tutira which was then taken over by Thomas Stuart. During the next two decades the partners defeated the bracken, grassed down the land, and greatly increased and improved their flock. In 1903 Guthrie-Smith bought out Stuart. The station then carried 38,000 sheep and was free of debt. After the First World War he subdivided the greater portion of it for soldier settlement. The small portion remaining at the time of his death – 2,000 acres — was left in trust for the nation.

It was not, however, as a farmer but as an author that Guthrie-Smith won distinction. In 1891 he had written and published a drama entitled Crispus. It was not a success and is significant only as an indication that he cherished literary ambitions early in life. He also tried to write fiction at about this time, but, soon realising that his talent lay in another direction, he began sending articles on natural history to the Selborne Magazine, several of which were accepted. Another of his articles, Bird Life on a Run, was printed in Transactions of the New Zealand Institute, 1895. But it was only after having reached middle age that he was able to devote much time to writing. The management of Tutira, especially during the long period when its financial success was in doubt, demanded his constant attention. The ties of family life were an added distraction. During one of his periodical visits to Scotland, in 1901, he married Georgina Meta Dennistoun-Brown, of Dumbartonshire, and in 1903 his daughter and only child, Barbara, was born.

It was not until 1908 that Guthrie-Smith began seriously to apply his patience and ingenuity to bird photography. Two years later his first book, Birds of the Water, Wood and Waste, well illustrated by the photographs he had spent so much time and trouble in obtaining, was published by Whitcombe and Tombs. The title, as he afterwards admitted, should have been Birds of a New Zealand Sheep Station, since it dealt only with species to be found locally. He was soon to break fresh ground. Several months spent in watching and photographing birds on Stewart Island during each of the years 1911, 1912, and 1913 provided material for another book – Mutton Birds and Other Birds, published by Whitcombe and Tombs in 1914. The outbreak of war found him in Scotland on one of his periodical visits. Being too old for active service, he took charge of the garden of the Third London General Hospital, and ran it with a staff of volunteers who, like himself, were anxious to serve though unfit for the armed forces. On returning to New Zealand he made use of the notes he had been taking “for half a lifetime” to write Tutira, which was published in 1921 by William Blackwood and Sons, of Edinburgh.

Having acquired a moderate fortune, Guthrie-Smith was now able to leave his much-reduced estate in charge of a manager and spend more time studying ornithology. Expeditions ranging from Stewart Island in the south to Little Barrier Island off the Hauraki Gulf provided him with material for another book – Bird Life on Island and Shore – also published by Blackwoods, in 1925. Not long before his wife's death, in 1927, Guthrie-Smith sailed on the Government steamer Tutanekai to visit various islands of the sub-Antarctic — the Snares, the Auckland, Campbell, Antipodes, and Bounty groups. In 1929, accompanied by his daughter, he made two more voyages on the same vessel, one to the Snares and Auckland groups, and another to the Kermadec islands lying nearly 700 miles north-east of Auckland.

As the years went by, Guthrie-Smith's literary output diminished, and not until 1936 did his last book make its appearance. The Sorrows and Joys of a New Zealand Naturalist, published by A. H. and A. W. Reed, was a commentary on the effect of European occupation on various districts of the South Island and some account of the fauna and flora of the sub-Antarctic island groups. The joys are those of a zealot at work on his chosen task. The sorrows derive from the author's contemplation of what to him is a grim tragedy being slowly enacted before his eyes. In this, as in all his previous books, Guthrie-Smith pleaded for the preservation of New Zealand's native forests and native birds. He recommended the setting aside of reserves watched over by permanent rangers whose task it should be to destroy alien pests. The work of conservation, he had once suggested, might be done “most cheaply and most efficiently by giving every assistance to our native keeper, forest ranger, and inspector-general of nuisances — the Weka”. This bird, it should be noted, is an enemy of the rat. In an earlier chapter Guthrie-Smith had affected to regret that New Zealand had ever been discovered by a race like the Anglo-Saxons whose “rat-like pertinacity has accomplished the ruin of a Fauna and Flora unique in the world”. The alien pests he classified as “goats, weasels, deer, possum, rats, alien birds, and citizens who light fires”.

As to the ruin of New Zealand's fauna and flora, he himself had been concerned in its accomplishment. The story of his involvement in the process is the subject of his finest book. After its first publication in 1921, a second edition of Tutira was brought out by Blackwoods in 1926 and a third in 1953. Beginning with an account of Tutira's geological origins, the author goes on to describe its occupation by Maori tribes, their feuds, battles, and cannibal feasts. In their day great fires destroyed much of the primeval forest, and when the European appeared he burnt both forest and scrub wherever possible to clear the way for stock and prepare the land for grassing down. But bracken fern took possession of the burnt country and when Guthrie-Smith came to Tutira he was confronted by the problem of how to destroy the fern and replace it with grass. More than 30 years elapsed before the task was completed.

Guthrie-Smith's powers of observation were extraordinarily acute; his interest in changing natural conditions was never failing. “Not one of a thousand rides on the station has been the duplicate of another,” he writes in Tutira: “each has been for forty years a fresh page in the story — to be continued in our next — of the overthrow of the old world, and the slow establishment of a new equilibrium.” The discoveries made in the course of these rides enabled him to explain exactly how the process of change took place — to show, for instance, that the apparently purposeless curves and windings of station pack tracks all have their origin in some former condition that no longer obtains. He was specially interested in the establishment of alien fauna and flora, and their effect upon indigenous conditions. His chapters on the introduction, intentional or otherwise, of plants both useful and harmful, are no less masterly than those dealing with the spreading over the land of imported animals and birds along the three natural highways of coastline, river bed, and hill-top route. Besides being Guthrie-Smith's best book, Tutira has an honoured place among the very few really first-class works that have come out of New Zealand.

In addition to his books, he wrote the accompanying text of one of the centennial pictorial surveys of New Zealand – The Changing Land – and contributed a number of articles on natural history to various publications. When writing of natural conditions Guthrie-Smith often rose to great heights, but his style was apt to become ponderously facetious whenever he had occasion to write of human beings. The fault may indicate an unconscious preference. When loss of activity forbade the pursuit and observation of wild life, he reverted to one of the enthusiasms of his boyhood and became a keen gardener. He died at Tutira on 4 July 1940 at the age of 79.

by Randall Mathews Burdon, M.C. (1896–1965), Author, Wellington.

• Guthrie-Smith of Tutira, Woodhouse, A. E. (1959)
• Tutira — The Story of a New Zealand Sheep Station, Guthrie-Smith, H. (1953)
• Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Vol. 70 (1941) (Obit)
• The Daily Telegraph (Napier), 5 Jul 1940 (Obit).

Red gurnard (Chelidonichthys kumu), or kumu-kumu of the Maoris, is easily recognised by its parchment-like side fins, which resemble wings, and the curious fingerlike processes associated with these fins. The fingers are used to grope about the sea bottom in search of crustaceans and other animal food. The gurnard grows up to 20 in. in length, but the usual size is 13–15 in. It is largely reddish brown, but the winglike fins are dark green relieved by sky blue spots and bright red rays. It is a good food fish and occurs abundantly in most parts of New Zealand, except in the extreme south.

by Arthur William Baden Powell, Assistant Director, Auckland Institute and Museum.

(1879–1963).

Director of school hygiene.

A new biography of Gunn, Elizabeth Catherine appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Elizabeth Catherine Gunn was born at Brown Street, Dunedin, on 23 May 1879, the eldest daughter of William Gunn, an ironmonger, and Elizabeth Jane, née Melton. She was educated at Timaru High School, Otago Girls' High School, Edinburgh University, where she gained M.B., Ch.B., and at Dublin. In August 1912 she joined the School Medical Service and was stationed at Wellington until 1915, when she joined the New Zealand Army Medical Corps. In 1919 she was appointed School Medical Officer at Wanganui. Early in that year, while on a visit to B. P. Lethbridge's farm at Turakina, she mentioned the good which could be accomplished if New Zealand children suffering from malnutrition were given regular hours, good food, and an open-air holiday. Lethbridge took up the idea and, in 1919, 50 children attended the first camp which he organised. The camp proved immensely successful and confirmed Dr Gunn's opinions. Similar camps were held annually until about 1930. In the meantime Dr Ada Paterson, the Director of School Hygiene, took up the idea and health camps were soon held in other districts. On 1 April 1938 Elizabeth Gunn succeeded Ada Paterson as Director of School Hygiene and retained this post until her retirement in June 1940. From then till her death on 26 October 1963 she was in private practice in Wellington. In 1951 she was awarded the M.B.E. for her services to the health camp movement. She was unmarried.

by Bernard John Foster, M.A., Research Officer, Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington.

• Wanganui Chronicle, 28 Oct 1963 (Obit).

Pigeons

Sparrows

International Match New Zealand Teams “High Gun” Since 1953

Champion of Champions

Clays — Single Rise

Clays — Double Rise

Skeet

Clays — Single Barrel

Clay Sparrows

Although some individuals have competed in overseas competitions previously, New Zealand did not really enter the international field until the Dominion first entered a team in the 1953 international match for the Mackintosh Trophy. This postal match is open to all countries in the British Commonwealth. Participation in this event has given New Zealand shooters a high international standing. After an unsuccessful début in 1953, they won the Mackintosh Trophy in 1954 and held it until 1957 and then registered a further success in 1961. Australia, the present holders, have won this competition on six occasions, England and New Zealand following with five wins. Canada was successful in 1960.

The first official trapshooting team to leave these shores travelled to the 1960 Australian championships held at Surfers Paradise. During this tournament the first Australia v. New Zealand teams match for the T. M. Glenn Cup was held, this first event resulting in an exciting tie, both teams registering 118 targets out of possible 120. This annual event is held in each country in alternate years and to date the score is even, each country having had two wins. Members of the 1960 team were Allan Brown (Lauder), captain; R. G. Brown (Anama); B. G. Begg (Darfield); J. McKenzie (Seaward Downs); J. R. Thomson (Rotorua); and H. C. Walker (Hakataramea). During the 1960 Australian championships, J. McKenzie (Seaward Downs, Southland) one of the best shots New Zealand has produced, brought further honour to his country when he became Australian champion of champions. McKenzie was the reigning New Zealand champion of champions at the time. H. C. Walker won the 1963 Australian champion of champions title. J. L. Thomson took the 1964 Australian Trophy National Championships.

The abolition of live-bird shooting in 1954 saw some of the interest go out of the shotgun-shooting sport, particularly for the older shooters who frowned upon the “clays” as poor substitutes for the “lives”. Prior to the cessation of live-bird shooting, the national championships had to be held in winter months when the birds were more plentiful. From 1955 onwards, when the national championships were restricted to clay-target events, the New Zealand tournament could be held in better weather, with the result that entries in the major events have increased considerably. Record entries for the four main championships have been: single rise (266), double rise (189), skeet (111), and single barrel (224).

Although skeet-shooting competitions began in the 1930s, its popularity has increased considerably since live-bird shooting was abolished. Skeet, which is a Scandinavian word meaning “shoot”, was first introduced about 35 years ago and is the name given to a “gun game for game guns” which was evolved in the United States primarily to enable keen game shots to keep in practice during the off season. Since that time skeet has been modified and improved in various ways and is now a rapidly growing and highly competitive sport in its own right in many countries. During 1961 New Zealand teams shot in the first overseas postal teams match, mainly against United States teams. Although the Dominion's representatives have not yet registered any major success in this annual event, participation in this match has certainly placed this country firmly on the clay-target-shooting map.

Since long-run trophies were first issued in 1955 to shooters registering consecutive breaks of 50, 75, and 100, the numbers of awards have been as follows: 50 – 843; 75 – 355; and 100 – 244.

Trapshooting certainly caters for all ages of sportsmen, as is evident from the number of youths, some still in their early teens, who have achieved considerable success. At the other extreme many successful competitors are definitely in the veteran class. That grand old shooter, the late James Hayes, of New Brighton, made shooting history when, at the Waihora Club on Boxing Day 1960, he celebrated his one hundred and first birthday by breaking a clay target.

by William Houston Stewart, General Secretary, New Zealand Gun Clubs' Association, Dunedin.