been simpler, easier, and really more economical to express both thoughts as they happen to come even if no agreement in expression results? Is not the economy in verbal expression more than abrogated through the expenditure of intellectual work? And who economized through it, whom does it benefit? We can temporarily circumvent these doubts by leaving them unsolved until later on. Are we really familiar enough with all the forms of techniques of wit? It will surely be safer to gather new examples and submit them to analysis. _Puns_ Indeed, we have not yet given consideration to one of the largest groups into which the techniques of wit may be divided. In this we have perhaps been influenced by the low estimate in which this form of wit is held. It embraces those jokes which are commonly called “puns.” These are generally counted as the lowest form of wit, perhaps because they are “cheapest” and can be formed with the least effort. They really make the least demands on the technique of expression just as the actual play on words makes the most. Whereas in the latter both meanings find expression in the identical word, and hence usually in a word used only once, in the pun it is enough if two words for both meanings resemble each other through some slight similarity in structure, in rhythmic consonance, in the community of several vowels, or in some other similar manner. The following examples illustrate these points: “We are now fallen into that critical age wherein _censores_ liberorum are become _censores librorum_: _Lectores_, _Lictores_.” Professor Cromwell says that Rome in exchanging her religion changed _Jupiter_ to _Jew Peter_. _It is related that some students wishing to play a trick on Agassiz, the great naturalist, constructed an insect made up of parts taken from different bugs and sent it to him with the question, “What kind of a bug is this?” His answer was “Humbug.”_ Puns are especially fond of modifying one of the vowels of the word; e.g., Hevesi (_Almanaccando, Reisen in Italien_, p. 87) says of an Italian poet who was hostile to the German emperor, but who was, nevertheless, forced to sing his praises in his hexameters, “_Since he could not exterminate the Cæsars he at least annihilated the cæsuras_.” From the multitude of puns which are at our disposal it may be of special interest to us to quote a really poor example for which Heine (_Book Le Grand_, Chapter V) is responsible. _After parading for a long time before his lady as an “Indian Prince” the suitor suddenly lays aside his mask and confesses, “Madam, I have lied to you. I have never been in Calcutta any more than that Calcutta roast which I relished yesterday for lunch.”_ Obviously the fault of this witticism lies in the fact that both words are not merely similar, but identical. The bird which served as a roast for his lunch is called so because it comes from, or at least is supposed to come from, the same city of Calcutta.