e accept the challenge of the foe:
From six stretched necks six more must make reply,
Echo, re-echo and prolong the crow.
First shrieking singly, then their notes they mix
In one combined cacophony of six.

Miscalled of poets "herald of the day,"
Spirit of evil, vain and wanton bird,
Was there then none to beg a moment's stay
Ere for thy being Fate decreed the word?
Could not ASCLEPIAS, when he ceased to be,
Take to the realms of death thy tribe and thee?

What boots it thus to question? for thou ART,
And still shalt be; but never canst be still,
Destined at midnight thus to play thy part,
And when all else is silent to be shrill.
Yea, as I lie all sleepless in the dark,
I love not those who housed thee in the Ark.

* * * * *

"AS GOOD AS A BETTER."

Dr. Andrew Wilson (in "Science Jottings," in the _Illustrated
London News_) dares disparage Golf "as an ideal game for young men,"
venturing to advocate the preferential claims of fogeyish Cricket, and
even of futile Lawn Tennis--

"O Scots, wha hae wi' BALFOUR teed."

What _wull_ ye say to this disloyal, slanderous, sacrilegious ANDY?
He hints that Golf is a mere modish fashion--even a _fin de siecle_
fad!!! How many perfervid and patriotic Scots will

"Condemn his soul to eternal perdition
For his theory of the--National Game?"

He says "you hit a ball and walk after it, and manoeuvre it into
a hole." Eugh! Such icy analysis would make Billiards a bore, and
resolve "Knuckle-down" into nonsense! "It is not (_Golf_ is not!)
a proceeding (_proceeding, quotha!_) of which youths and young men
should grow enamoured." As though, forsooth, Golf were a sort of
elderly Siren luring limp and languorous youths into illegitimate
courses; a _passee_ Delilah, whose enervating fascinations sapped the
virile vigour that might be dedicated to "that noblest of sports,"
Cricket, or even that "much better game," Lawn Tennis!!!

Surely the devotees of the Golf-cultus, the lovers of the Links, will
be down like a "driver" upon Dr. WILSON. Oh, ANDY, ANDY, between you
and your "brither Scots" there is henceforth "a great Golf fixed"!

* * * * *

A CRICKET PARADOX.

Though true without questioning, yet all the same,
It's a trifle perplexing to know what it means
That the counties that hate most to lose in a game
Would be pleased very much at your giving th