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Show J 'i WHO'S NEWS THIS WEEK By LEMUEL F. PARTON NEW YORK. This writer has always al-ways thought it would be a good idea for the newspapers of a city to make an award every year to the person who had Dr. Ditmars provided them Superlative with the most News Source fJ copy. In New York, I would nominate Dr. Raymond L. Ditmars, for 39 years curator of mammals and reptiles at the Bronx zoo, almost al-most any year. He has just left for Trinidad to catch some parasol ants, which he bas been craving for a long time. It has been generally supposed that the ants pack leaves and petals for shade. Dr. Ditmars puts us right on that. They gather hem only for food. The curator has exploded many myths, but usually substitutes something some-thing even more interesting. Reptiles Rep-tiles haven't the slightest interest in sweet music and aren't soothed by it, monkeys will return to cleared jungle if it grows again; the mother snake does not swallow the little ones in times of danger. But, being thus disillusioned, we learn from Dr. Ditmars that there are sea serpents, great schools of them, in the Indian oceac and the western tropical Pacific. They are as gaudy as aa Elks' parade, with cold, bead? eyes, and emit a dreadful dread-ful venom. Dr. Ditmars carries them on the books as hydrophiinae. There are flying snakes, fish that climb trees, fish that shoot down bugs out of the air by expelling ex-pelling pellets of water like an air gun, frogs that can swallow rats, frogs with vocal power 1,000 times that of a man, insects in-sects which are carried by jungle jun-gle people for flashlamps, animals ani-mals which can travel 60 miles an hour and animals which never nev-er lie down. Dr. Ditmars is 62 years old. At me age oi 10, ne Degan gathering insects for the Museum of Natural History. He had a year of newspaper news-paper work before joining the staff of the zoo, which may account foJ his being a friendly Santa Claus to reporters. TT IS recalled that Homer Martin, 1 the fighting parson who contends with John L. Lewis in a Faustian struggle for the body and soul of the . automobile union, " omer Martin was the world hop, May Still Be skip and jump World Champ?1 ampion Just R "lew years ago and may be still. It Is only three years ago that he quit the pastorate of the Leeds Baptist church In Kansas Kan-sas City, got a job in the Fisher plant, organized the local of the United Automobile Workers' union and became its first international president. His battle soon turned from the bosses to the left-wingers of the union and that's the Issue of his contention with Mr. Lewis. Getting under way, he eloquently eloquent-ly plastered William Green of the A. F. of L. and It is not clear where he would be headed in case of a final break with the C. I. O. leadership. He is tall, athletic once a track star for the Illinois Athletic club with a wide, ready smile and shell-rimmed shell-rimmed glasses. He gets $3,000 a year for a whole lot of trouble and strife, but seems to enjoy it He is 36 years old, born and reared on a southern Illinois farm. 'TpHIS writer knew quite a number of early-day aviators, including Lincoln Beachey, Art Smith, Bob Fowler, Si Christofferson and others, i and he always Col. Turner wondered why In Splashes none of them ever Of Gay ColorsdTesseA the Part-They Part-They all were as drab as so many gray moths, while their role certainly called for a dash of color. One thought of the sartorial sar-torial dash of d'Artagnan, Porthoa and Athos if they had been riding the skies. Col. Roscoe Turner, who recently lifted the Thompson trophy at Cleveland, Cleve-land, for the second time, winning $22,000, satisfies a long-felt want. His flying togs are modeled on the old-time pousse cafe, calculated to give him protective coloring against a flaming sunset, but high visibility from below. For years, off and on, he has been picking up records in pink pants and a lavender tunic, or in an ensemble blending many shades of blue, cerise anil henna, hen-na, with a rakish English otll-ccrs' otll-ccrs' cap, rutUly face, Grovcr W.alen wax-tipped mustache and a couple of octaves of fine teeth. Here, s the old books on decorum would have it, s outfit wlmh would take you around the world. Colonel Turner is of California background, the title being a disj.cn-ea disj.cn-ea ion of the governor of that also colorful state. ConxolW.:.!.-.! News fVllmv, WNU SiTvk-e. |
