DEAR MR. PUNCH,--From your earliest years you have preached sound and wholesome doctrine on the duty of man to birds and beasts. Indeed, I remember your pushing it to extreme lengths in a poem entreating people not to mention mint-sauce when conversing with a lamb. Still, I wonder whether even you would approve of the title of an article in _Nature_ on "The Behaviour of Beetles." Of course I know that "behaviour" is a colourless word, still I am rather inclined to doubt whether beetles know how to behave at all. I may be prejudiced by my own experiences, but they certainly have been unfortunate. They began early--at my private school, to be precise. I shall never forget the conversation I had, when a new boy, with a sardonic senior who, after putting me through the usual catechism, asked me what I was going to be. I replied that I had not yet decided, whereupon my tormentor, after looking at my feet, which I have never succeeded in growing up to, observed, "Well, if I were you, I think I should emigrate to Colorado and help to crush the beetle." Later on in life I was the victim of a cruel hoax, carried out with triumphant ingenuity by a confirmed practical joker, who with the aid of a thread caused what appeared to be a gigantic blackbeetle to perform strange and unholy evolutions in my sitting-room. Worst of all, I was victimised by the presence of a blackbeetle in a plate of clear soup served me at my club. I backed my bill, but it was too late, for I am very shortsighted. No, Mr. Punch, I am prepared to discuss the Ethics of Eels, the Altruism of Adders, the Piety of Pintails, or even the Benevolence of Bluebottles, but (to deviate into doggerel)-- "Let LANKESTERS, LUBBOCKS and CHEATLES Dilate with a rapturous bliss On the noble behaviour of beetles-- _I_ give them a miss." I am, Mr. Punch, with much respect, Yours faithfully, PHILANDER BLAMPHIN. * * * * * THREE TRAGEDIES AND A MORAL. There was an imperious old Sage Who upheld the dominion of Age, But his son, a grim youth, Red in claw and in tooth, Shut him up in a chloroformed cage. There was also a Child full of beans Who bombarded nine great magazines, But not one of the nine Ever published a line, For the Child was not yet in its teens. There was thirdly, to round off these rhymes, A Matron who railed at the crimes Of designers of frocks Who in smart fashion "blocks" Left middle-age out of _The Times_. The moral--if morals one seeks In an age of sensation and shrieks-- Is this: Even still Things are apt to go ill With old, young and middle-aged freaks. * * * * * Our Erudite Contemporaries. "The Grecian women were forbidden entrance to the stadium where the [Olympic] games were being held, and any woman found therein was thrown from the Tarpeian rock." _Canadian Paper._ * * * * *