By a buttercup field we came to land And every passenger lent a hand To unload our food and spread it out, While the cows stood flapping their tails about. And Peggy as waitress played her part, And John fell into the gooseberry tart. I can't explain, though I wish I could, Why everything tasted twice as good? As it does at home in the cheerful gloom Of the old familiar dining-room. Every picnicky thing was there, Including the girls and the son and heir, A red-cheeked frivolous knife-and-fork's crew, Who hadn't forgotten, oh joy, the corkscrew! And, last, we furbished our feasting-green, And left no paper to spoil the scene, Did up the remains in a tidy pack And took to our boat and drifted back. R. C. L. * * * * * THE CORNCRAKE. The corncrake has arrived. As I turned in at the gate last night he reported himself in the usual way. So now we are in for it. The priceless boon of silence in the hours of darkness will be denied to us for many weeks to come. I do not know how to describe his utterance. It could not without extravagance be called a note, still less a chirp, and least of all a song. It is not a bark--not quite. It is hardly a growl or a grunt or a snort; I should be sorry to call it a bray or a yelp. And yet I am not going to admit that it is a quack or a bleat; and it isn't a screech or a squeal or a sob. Nor is it a croak, though now we are getting nearer to it. The puzzling thing about it is that it was clearly meant by Nature to be an interjection. Uttered once, suddenly, from the far side of a hedge it would admirably convey such a sentiment as, "Hi!" "What ho!" or "Here we are again!" But in practice it is the one sound in the whole landscape that never interjects. It is a monument of barren reiteration. I wonder why he does it. No doubt he has some end in view. He must get something out of it--some bodily ease or mental stimulus or spiritual consolation. But he must surely have been born with a prodigious passion for monotony. It may surprise you to learn that in the course of the season he will make that same remark over two million times. I have worked it out. Two million is a conservative estimate. It only allows for eight hours' work out of the twenty-four, for a term of six weeks: so that it is well within the mark.