Dear Syd,
If you are going to put up the rhyme about the Cormorant, please get it
right! It is a proper set of metrical rhyming couplets.
The Common Cormorant or Shag
Lays eggs inside a paper bag.
The reason you will see, no doubt:
It is to keep the lightning out.
But what these unobservant birds
Have never realised is, that herds
Of wandering Bears may come with Buns
And steal the bag to hold the crumbs.
ANON.
(May date from 1920s? A.E.Housman apparently wrote some similar
efforts, as I find in 'The Oxford Book of Creatures' which I have just
bought from Clouston and Hall, bless them.)
Another similar effort began:
The Rabbit has a charming face,
Its private life is a disgrace...
Also: The Sausage is a cunning bird
With feathers long and wavy.
It swims about the frying-pan
And makes its nest in gravy.
On a filthy cold day like this I'm not averse to verse, but the Little
Wattlebirds are cackling away in the Proteas just the same.
Anthea Fleming in Melbourne
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