ostrich's jaw
It would have to be carved with a circular saw."

The foregoing lines clearly enforce the important lesson of
contentment with the existing order. This moral is perhaps less
implicit in the lines on the peacock:--

"If a peacock had but the nightingale's trill
It would make all prima donnas feel ill.
If the nightingale had but the peacock's tail
It would merit a headline in the _Mail_."

Contentment again is the keynote of the couplets on the owl:--

"If an owl would enter the nuthatch's nest
Its figure would have to be much compressed.
If the nuthatch had but the face of an owl
It would be a most unpopular fowl."

A slightly different formula is to be noted in the lines on the snipe,
but the spirit is substantially the same:--

"If a snipe were the size of a threepenny bit
It would be a great deal harder to hit.
But if it grew to the size of an emu
It wouldn't be better to eat than seamew."

Lastly I may quote the only couplet in which beasts as well as birds
are subjected to this searching analysis. I think you will admit that
it is the most sagacious and impressive of them all:--

"If a pig had wings and the legs of a stork
It would damage the quality of its pork,"

Thine, MCDOUGALL POTT.

_Poets' Corner House, Dottyville._

* * * * *

"As a result of trying to find an escape of gas with a light, a
flat in Westminster was seriously damaged."--_Provincial Paper_.

Serve him right.

* * * * *

REPORTS.

The other day I was looking through some school reports. Holidays
always bring them forth. You know the kind of thing: History--Is most
diligent but needs concentration; Music--Lacks purposefulness, does
not practise sufficiently; Mathematics--Weak; General Conduct--Might
be better; Conversational French--_Sera plus facile avec plus de
confiance_; Theology--A sad falling off; and so on; and it occurred to
me that it might not be a bad thing if the report system, instead of
stopping with our school-days, pursued us through life. The periodical
perusal of a report, drawn up with as much authority as a scholastic
staff possesses, might have very beneficial results.

My own early ones no longer exist; but it would be a very searching
test of our educational system to study these reports thirty-five
years after and subject them to an honest commentary. How little that
one learned then ha