To the psychologist this Hun attribute, shared with the ostrich, of hiding his head and believing that the rest of his person is unseen, provokes some interesting hypotheses. _Inter alia_, it serves to remind us that birds, however big, stand next to reptiles in the scale of creation. Hun methods are distinctively reptilian. The Hun, when fully gorged, becomes lethargic and stupid. In this cartoon, the Hun Eagle, appropriately emblazoned upon that portion of the Hun body of which we may confidently hope to see more and more in the near future, reminds me of that loathsome beast--the Turkey Buzzard. In California, where I first made his acquaintance, this horrible vulture would have been exterminated long ago had he not been protected by the law, which recognized his peculiar usefulness as a scavenger. Hungry, these buzzards are almost unapproachable; after a carrion meal a child can despatch them with a stone. May we not assume that the Huns, however clever and cunning when hungry, become as boas and buzzards after a surfeit? To-day they are boasting of what they have absorbed on the map of Europe. Do they realize yet the dead weight of these temporary conquests? Germania, like some monstrous viper, has swallowed her own young. Unlike the viper, she cannot disgorge them alive. Such reflections are not intended to minimize the task that still confronts the Allies. But what the Hun has done by land and air and sea will be the measure of his undoing. _Nobody sees me and I can always deny it._ Everybody sees him; and if his acts are enough to make angels weep, his denials of them move the world to inextinguishable laughter. HORACE ANNESLEY VACHELL. [Illustration] _The Orient Express_ One of the objectives of the present war was to secure Germany’s command of the Near East. A railway from Berlin to Bagdad had long been treated as a primary article in that creed of German _Welt-politik_ which the war was to make prevail. For a time the plan promised excellently. The Turkish alliance with the Central Empires seemed to bring Asia Minor securely under German sway. The railway route was saved. The Kaiser and his advisers prematurely regarded Russia as an extinct volcano, which was incapable of thwarting their Oriental policy. Disillusionment came quickly. The German tourist who foresaw an unimpeded road through Prussia to Persia was suddenly confronted with an impassable barrier. The Russian Army of the Caucasus swept through Armenia and occupied the Turkish citadel of Erzerum, which commanded the line of travel at its most critical point. Small are the chances of retrieving the lost foothold. The whole design is doomed beyond recall. It is the habit of our arch-foe to count his chickens before they are hatched. SIDNEY LEE. [Illustration] _The Bloomersdijk_