The s.s. Minnehaha left here yesterday for London with fifty crates of American birds and a great variety of animals. Three trunks were carried for the oppossum to build in and for the beavers to gnaw."--_Daily Mirror._ Nothing is said about the other creatures' luggage. * * * * * From the time-table of a Hampshire motor-service:-- "The Fares between any points on any route will be found where the vertical line of figures under the name of one of the points meets the horizontal line of figures which terminates in the name of the other of the two points between which it is desired to travel." The Hampshire Hog needs to be a very learned pig. * * * * * [Illustration: _Mother._ "WELL, DARLINGS, WHAT ARE YOU PLAYING?" _Margaret._ "WE'RE PLAYING AT WEDDINGS. I'M THE BRIDE AND BETTY'S THE BRIDESMAID." _Mother._ "BUT WHERE'S THE BRIDEGROOM?" _Margaret._ "OH, THIS IS A VERY QUIET WEDDING."] * * * * * THE REEFS. All the grim rocks that stand guard about Scilly-- Wingletang, Great Smith and Little Granilly, The Barrel of Butter, Dropnose and Hellweather-- Started to boast of their conquests together, Of drowned men and gallant, tall vessels laid low While gulls wheeled about them like flurries of snow And green combers romped at them smashing in thunder, Gurgling and booming in caverns down under, Sending their diamond-drops flying in showers. "Oh," said the reefs, "what a business is ours! Since saints in coracles paddled from Erin (Fishing our waters for sinners and herrin') And purple-sailed triremes of Hamilco came To the Islands of Tin, we've played at the game. We shattered the galleys of conquering Rome, The galleons of PHILIP that scudded for home (The sea-molluscs slime on their glittering gear); We plundered the plundering French privateer, We caught the great Indiaman head in the wind And gutted her hold of the treasures of Ind; We sank a whole fleet of three-deckers one night (The drift of the sand keeps their culverins bright), And cloudy tea-clippers that raced from Canton Swept into our clutches--and never went on. Come steel leviathans scorning disaster We scrapped them as fast--if anything faster. So pick up your pilot and take a cross-bearing, Sound us and chart us from Lion to Tearing, And ring us with lighthouses, day-marks and buoys, The gales are our hunters, the fogs our decoys. We shall not go hungry; we grin and we wait, Black-fanged and foam-drabbled, the wolves at the Gate." PATLANDER. * * * * * AWAY TO THE MEADOWS!