Yours obediently, SAMUEL SOBERSIDES.

SIR,—­Since writing you that letter about our bull-finch, I have discovered an even more surprising fact, which I am sure no Naturalist has yet dreamed of.  Not only do birds appreciate snow, but they are very fond of iced beverages.  A tom-tit, who often drinks water from a saucer which we put on our window-sill, one day found the water frozen.  What did the intelligent creature do?  Why, it rapped on the window-pane with its beak till the window was opened, then hopped on to the sideboard, and began trying to peck the cork out of a whiskey bottle!  I took the hint, and poured some of the spirit into the saucer; the bird drank it greedily!  My wife’s comment on this occurrence is really too good to be lost, so I send it you.  She said, “Evidently the bird was not a tomtitotaller!”

Yours, in convulsions, LOVER OF NATURE (as before).

* * * * *

A PINT OF HALF-AND-HALF.

“‘Qui va la?’ says he.”
“‘Je,’ replies I, knowing the language.”
“Jeames” and another Old Story.

The international susceptibilities of Sheriff DRURIOLANUS—­henceforth to bear the Anglo-French title, Monsieur le Sherif ’Arris de Paris, or ’Arry de Parry,—­appear to have been considerably hurt by a statement in the Debats to the effect that the appearance in the London streets of men dressed as Gendarmes—­“en gendarmes francais,” writes MOSSOO DRURIOLANE—­intended as perambulating advertisements for the Waterloo Panorama, was due to a supreme effort of his managerial genius.  So Sherif DRURIOLANE wrote at once to the London Correspondent of the Figaro, who bears the singularly French name of JOHNSON, denying, in his very best French, that he, M. le Sherif, had had anything to do with these walking advertisements, or, indeed, with the Panorama Company at all, from which he had retired a year ago.  Then he adds, like the preux chevalier he is known to be, that had he still been on the direction of the aforesaid Compagnie, he, at all events, would never, never have committed the enormity of even suggesting, however vaguely, an idea so calculated to needlessly insult “les susceptibilites francaises.” ("Hear! hear!” and “Tres bien!” from the left.) Then M. le Sherif DRURIOLANE, rising to the occasion, finishes with this magnificent flourish on the French horn—­“Je suit ne en France”—­(Isn’t it very much “to his credit,” we ask with W.S.G., that, “In spite of all temptations, To belong to other nations, He remains an Englishman?” Why, certainly)—­“j’ai vecu parmi les Francais, et je suis a moitie enfant de Paris.”