Volume 158 — BIRD CALLS.
Reading edition
III.
The robin helps to brighten Winter days And, if you listen carefully, he says, “Oh please, oh please do leave some crumbs for me;” It’s greed, but still he says it cheerily. The starling rolls his “r’s” with unctuous joy And, preening, wonders whom he may annoy, Then imitates a hen, a water-fowl And next the “Be quick” of a white barn-owl. The heron has a fierce and yellow eye And eats up all our fishes on the sly; There seems to be but one he deigns to like, For all I hear him say is simply “Pike.” Tree-creepers, like some busy brown field-mice, Unwearying chase the furtive fat wood-lice, Then round the oak-tree’s bole they slyly peep And tell you what you thought you knew—“We creep.” This is the way the sparrow calls his mate; He says it early and he says it late, He says it softly, but he says it clear: “Come unto me, come unto me, my dear.”
Dress at the Curzon Wedding.
“Princess —— wore a black hat, a cloak of tailless ermine, and a black and silver toque.”—Daily Telegraph.
“Then came Mrs. —— in a dull golf hat.”—Daily Graphic.
As a protest, we suppose, against the other lady’s extravagance in wearing a couple of hats.
“John ——, a coloured man, was charged with using obscure language in Maria Street. The magistrates fined him 5s.”—Welsh Paper.
Most unfair! Lots of men do the very same thing in Parliament and get paid four hundred pounds a year for it.
Heading from pp. 516, 517 of Punch’s official rival, The Telephone Directory:
“Subscribers should not engage ****** the telephonists in conversation.”
We should ourselves have placed the asterisks after the word “the.”