Of all the Flying Corps photographs of war, perhaps the most striking is that taken before Ypres of the first Hun gas attack. A B.E2.C., well behind the German lines, caught sight of a strange snowball of a cloud rolling across open ground, in the wake of an east wind. It flew to investigate, and the pilot photographed the phenomenon from the rear. This reproduction of a tenuous mass blown along the discoloured earth will show coming generations how the Boche introduced to the black art of warfare its most devilish form of frightfulness. I would send you a few aerial photographs, as you suggest, if the private possession of them were not strictly verboten. Possibly you will have an opportunity of seeing all you want later, for if the authorities concerned are wise they will form a public collection of a few thousand representative snapshots, to show the worlds of to-day, to-morrow, and the day after what the camera did in the great war. Such a permanent record would be of great value to the military historian; and on a rainy afternoon, when the more vapid of the revues were not offering matinées, they might even be of interest to the average Londoner. I can tell you little of the technical branch of this new science, which has influenced so largely the changing war of the past two years, and which will play an even greater part in the decisive war of the next two. All I know is that hundreds of photos are taken every day over enemy country, that ninety per cent of them are successful, and that the trained mechanics sometimes produce finished prints twenty minutes after we have given them our plates. Moreover, I am not anxious to discuss the subject further, for it is 10 P.M., and at 5 A.M., unless my good angel sends bad weather, I shall be starting for an offensive patrol over Mossy-Face. Also you don't deserve even this much, as I have received no correspondence, books, or pork-pies from you for over a week. In ten minutes' time I shall be employed on the nightly slaughter of the spiders, earwigs, and moths that plague my tent. Good night. FRANCE, _September_, 1916 V. THE ARCHIBALD FAMILY. ... You remark on the familiarity with which I speak of Archie, and you ask for detailed information about his character and habits. Why should I not treat him with familiarity? If a man calls on you nearly every day you are entitled to use his Christian name. And if the intimacy be such that at each visit he tries to punch your head, he becomes more a brother than a friend. How, you continue, did a creature so strenuous as the anti-aircraft gun come by the flippant name of Archie? Well, once upon a time the Boche A.-A. guns were very young and had all the impetuous inaccuracy incident to youth. British airmen scarcely knew they were fired at until they saw the pretty, white puffs in the distance.