This, also, can't interest anybody, yet I give it. I get up at 4 A.M., and take a walk. From 7 to 10 I work. After dinner--with champagne--I take another stroll. I have made most astonishing scientific discoveries at this time. I could, point out the exact spot in the road where I became convinced that _the whole country had been elevated sixteen feet since the morning_! +H-xl-y+, who was with me, quite agreed, and said that we must all have been elevated at the same time, without knowing it. +My Favourite Authors.+ These are, of course, +Lyell+ on _Lias_, and +Hookey+ on _Herbaceous Foraminifera_. They are far superior to +Shakspeare+, who bores me. I like novels, the trashier the better. Only let 'em end well, and I don't care how they begin, or whether they begin at all. In newspapers, the best part, I think, is the Parliamentary Debates. In reading them I have often got valuable hints as to the "Origin of Speeches," and they frequently afford conclusive evidence of the "Descent of Man." I thought of bringing Parliamentary manners in as a chapter in my book on "Earth-worms," but +H-xl-y+ advised me not to, and I didn't. +My Nose.+ I think I've mentioned this feature before. It troubles me. It is undoubtedly of a low type, yet it has survived! Why have I not been fitted with a fitter one? It is another instance of the fact that everything--including my fame--has come to me by sheer luck. +H-xl-y+ says "there's a Dar-winning modesty about this last remark." Also says, "I've found the 'Philosopher's Tone.'" (What screaming fun +H-xl-y+ always is!) +My Portraits.+ Perhaps I may be allowed to say one word as to the Photographs preceding these volumes. _They aren't the least little bit like me_! In Volume One I appear as the unmistakable "Country Butcher." In Volume Two I am "The Gorilla Asleep," or "Beetle-brow Napping" (after a beetle-hunt, probably). Volume Three represents me as the Typical Brigand of Transpontine Melodrama. Why, too, has the Photographer insisted on bringing out that unfortunate feature of mine so prominently? Why? indeed! Who nose? * * * * * THE LARKS AND THE ROSES. (_Ballad, by Milton Featherly Jonsone_.) [Illustration: Rose on the Swell.] The roses were blowing, like whales in the sea Where the apple-bloom icebergs plunged fearless and free, And the larks carolled madly their high jubilee In the ether. The daisies ran riot in sunshine and shade, And the call of the cuckoo was heard from the glade, Where Summer with mellow monotony play'd On her zither. _Tempo di Valse_. Ho, larks and roses! Hey, the bonny weather! Hey, we rose at morning prime; Ho, we lark'd together!