The skuas and the cormorants,
    And all the puffin clan,
  The stormy petrels, gulls, and terns,
    They hopped, and skipped, and ran
  With very injudicious speed
    To join that oily man.

  “The time has come,” remarked the Brum,
    “For ‘talking without tears’
  Of birds unhappily extinct,
    Yet known in former years;
  And how much cash an egg will fetch
    In Naturalistic spheres.”

  “But not our eggs!” replied the birds,
    Feeling a little hot. 
  “You surely would not rob our nests
    After this pleasant trot?”
  The Midland man said nothing but,—­
    “I guess he’s cleared the lot!”

  “Well!” said that bland Oologist,
    “We’ve had a lot of fun. 
  Next year, perhaps, these Shetland birds
    We’ll visit—­with a gun;
  When—­as we’ve taken all their eggs—­
    There’ll probably be none!”

* * * * *

QUEER QUERIES.

DIVORCE FACILITIES.—­I should like to be informed in what part of the United States it is that a Divorce is granted in half-an-hour, at a merely nominal fee, on the ground of conscientious objections to monogamy?  What is the cost of getting there, and would it be necessary that my wife should go there too?  There might be a difficulty in persuading her to take the journey.

INCOMPATIBILITY.

* * * * *

A CANADIAN CALENDAR.

(TO BE HOPED NOT PROPHETIC.)

1892.  Reciprocity firmly established between the Dominion and the U.S.A.

1893.  Emigration ceases between the Dominion and the Mother Country, and trade dies out.

1894.  Return from Canada of families of the best blood to England and France.

1895.  Great increase of the Savage Indian Tribes in the country, and the Improvident Irish Population in the towns of the Dominion.

1896.  Practical suspension of trade between the Dominion and the U.S.A., the latter having now attained the desired object of shutting out goods of British manufacture from the American market.

1897.  England refuses to assist Canada in resenting Yankee encroachment in the seal fisheries.

1898.  Canada asks to be annexed to the U.S.A.

1899.  After some hesitation Uncle SAM consents to absorb the Dominion.

1900.  Canada becomes a tenth-rate Yankee State.

* * * * *

THE DICTUM OF DIOGENES.

  “One Man, One Vote!” A very proper plan
  If you with each One Vote can find—­One Man!

* * * * *

MRS. GRUNDY TO MR. GOSCHEN.

  The Three per Cents, the Three per Cents,
    Serene but mortal Three,
  In view of recent sad events,
    Oh! give them back to me. 
  Oh!  GOSCHEN, Sir, kind gentleman,
    Hear my polite laments;
  Restore this trio, if you can—­
    Those musical Per Cents.